Sunday 14/3/2010
Mufarakeh is another one of these generic names of various vegetable dishes. They share very little between them some are vegetarian like Mufaraket Kusa (courgettes mufarakeh), some use eggs, and some are cooked with ground meat like today's dish Mufaraket Batata (Potato Mufarakeh). The only common factor I could think of is the simplicity of these dishes. They are usually easy to make, quick,
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Last night I stumbled upon some of the most original cooking videos I have seen. They are made by 7aki7aki a Syrian student in France somewhere, may be Paris judging from her other videos. She is originally from Homs a small nice city north of Damascus. She posted recipes of some Syrian classics cooked Homsi style. The cooking and the filming takes place in the most basic and tiniest kitchens.
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Just a quick post today to share with you a recipe I didn't cook for years and years. It wasn't one of my favourite dishes growing up but I have been craving it for the last two weeks. Finally I managed to cook it yesterday.Today's dish is Mnazalet Zahra. Zahra is Syrian for cauliflower (we use the same word, zahra, for flowers). The word Mnazaleh is still a mystery for
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In the traditional Syrian households, kitchen is the woman territory. Dad brings the food, mum cooks the food. I like to believe that this family module is changing. More and more family are breaking this rigid structure, may be very slowly but continuously. May be it is just my liberal brain convincing me that things are changing. I don't know!Regardless of how traditional, liberal, backward or
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Before I posted my fried cauliflower recipe I was sure if I should post it or not. I didn't think people will be that interested in some fried vegetables recipe. Because I liked that dish so much I decided to go ahead and post it. I will have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the response. Nineteen comments in total, some loved it, some never heard of it, it
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I went to a boys only high school back in Damascus. I had a great group of friends, ten of us, stuck together like conjoined twins. If one wants to buy a jeans all ten of us went to buy that jeans. If one needed a haircut we all went for a hair cut. One of the greatest characters in that group was Issam. This guy lives his life in
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When a Syrian expectant mother is writing her list of things to buy in preparation for the birth, caraway seeds features high on this list along with milk bottles, nappies and baby cloths.After birth people visit the new mother to congratulate her on the baby arrival. Carawya is a special type of desert almost exclusively served for this occasion. The word Carawya is Arabic for caraway. No
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I decided to use the name Hummus with Meat for this dish rather than the name used in Levantine restaurants here in London, "Hummus Kawermah". Kawermah (or awerma or qawerma) is an almost extinct form of preserved meat while the topping of this dish is obviously not that. It is fried meat. In Syria the word hummus kawerma doesn't exist and the dish is called "Hummus bil Lahmeh" which literally
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I get asked about halal meat a lot. Do I need to use halal meat for Middle Eastern cooking? Is there any difference between halal and non-halal meat? Can you tell the difference?Halal, for those who don't know it, is meat from animals slaughtered according to the Islamic law. The word itself is an Arabic word means "permissible" or "lawful" and this could refer to anything allowed under Islamic
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All my life I wanted to be a chef. As a true Syrian I ended up a surgeon!