Friday 3/9/2010
Few weeks ago I discovered a new ingredient, Lavash bread. I have always seen it on Middle Eastern grocery shops in West Ealing but I never thought about trying it until recently, and what a discovery! Lavash is a type of very thin bread native to Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The bread is a beautifully versatile ingredient that can be used to make pastries, borak and even oven
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Another year passed very quickly and Ramadan is here again. Although I am not particularly the religious type, I can't ignore the presence of the holy month. The culinary tradition of Ramadan is incomparable to any time of the year. The whole month is a celebration of food, drinks and sweets. Today's dish is chicken vermicelli soup, a firm childhood favourite. Nice and strongly flavoured tangy
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I haven't cooked spinach since I met my wife few years ago. Although it was one of my favourite vegetables to eat as a child, Nada didn't like it so I didn't bothered cooking it. I never questioned what about spinach she didn't like. Then it all came clear. I had the misfortune of trying Sabzi!Sabzi for those who don't know it is a Persian way of cooking spinach along
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Most of my memories, happy and sad, are related to my teen years and early university. It was the best time of my life. I spent my childhood in Saudi Arabia with my family. I didn't like that place and the whole fifteen years I spent there are like a giant memory black hole. I hardly remember the place. I never speak about it and it doesn't feature in any
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I was never a fan of fusion cuisine. I am still to try a fusion dish that tastes better or even comparable to its ancestors. Usually it is the flavour combinations that ruins the experience for me.Personally I always found that fusion between two geographically close cuisines works better than two wide apart. May be because neighboring countries use similar ingredients so when you fuse the two
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When I posted a recipe of my take on the Syrian classic Mufaraket Batata, my friends Rania and Tammam ended up "hotly debating" what makes dish Mufarakeh. Rania objected to me using the name for my version. At the time I thought the dishes with the generic name "Mufarakeh" have very little in common.This discussion remained in my mind ever since. After some soul searching and some extensive
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Borak, or as commonly known by the Turkish variation of the name Borek, is an umbrella term describing a huge variety of filled pastries eaten in all ex-Ottoman Empire countries. Serbia, Greece, Armenia, Turkey, Armenia and The Levant have some version or another of the dish. The common feature of these pastries is a crispy flaky crust and a generous filling. Meat or cheese are by far the most
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I love egg sandwiches in every way shape or form. Mayo, cress, boiled, fried, red sauce, brown sauce... anything with eggs really. The one I love the most is a Syrian one I make. I borrowed a classic Syrian salad usually accompanies Kebab and I tweaked it a little. Add that to some soft boiled eggs and you have a great fresh tasting sandwich.The word Kebab in Syria refer to
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Bulgur is a stable ingredient of the East Mediterranean diet for centuries. Romans and Egyptian used to eat it since 1000BC. There is even reference in The Old Testament to the wheat grain. Bulgur is made from durum wheat. The grains are bar-boiled, dried again in the sun, partially de-branned then ground to the desired grain size. Traditionally it comes in two varieties, fine used in Tabouleh
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It is so bloody hot in London. I just came back from work on the underground. I swear the temperature in that train was in the high thirties, low forties. It is been like this for the last three days and it is getting too much for me. My functioning temperature is below twenty and if it gets any higher my brain starts to melt away. People are usually amazed
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All my life I wanted to be a chef. As a true Syrian I ended up a surgeon!