Arabic Summer Spread

Tuna Rice: 

- Basmati rice (1 1/2-2 cups depends on the size of your family) 

- 1 small chopped onion (if you don't like the texture of the onion like some members of my family just throw in a peeled onion bulb in tact and then remove it later)

- 2 cloves of garlic

- 1/2 green pepper finely diced (if you like spice add jalapeno? also crushed red pepper)  

- 1 small can of tomato paste

- 2 cans of tuna (in oil, preferably the kind you find at a middle eastern store, or even a good brand in oil) 

- Stock or water

- Salt & black pepper

- Pinch of allspice and ground clove

- A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

- A few tbsp oil + oil from the tuna can

Wash and soak rice in advance, at least 30 minutes before cooking, I used tilda basmati.

Fill and boil kettle.

Chop vegetables like onion, green pepper. 

Heat oil in the pot, add vegetables and sautee until translucent, add chopped garlic frying until fragrant, at this point add tomato paste to caramelize and fry in the oil which will remove the raw flavour.

Season with salt (1 tsp per cup of rice, if tuna is salty reduce salt in recipe) 

Add black pepper to taste, and a pinch of both ground allspice and ground clove (if you only have one or the other use it) 

Drain rice and add to pot frying around, be careful not to break the rice grains, the objective here is just to get the oil coating the rice a bit. 

Add enough water (or stock, water is fine here though) to cook the amount of rice you're cooking. 

At this point when it looks all ready for simmering I add in the can of tuna (oil and all), keeping the tuna in tact and just laying it over the top of the rice (do not mix it or it'll flake into small pieces) and then cover and simmer until rice is cooked.

Remove from heat and gently using a spoon turn the rice over bringing the bottom to the top with a large flat spoon being careful not to mush up the tuna but arrange large pieces on top or throughout the rice. You could transfer it and arrange the rice on a platter to cool better.

Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Items on the menu above:

Lamb koftas (ground lamb, thyme, chopped mint, chopped cilantro, mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt & black pepper, with a tad bit of egg and breadcrumb to keep it in tact)

Beef tenderloin tikka: beef, olive oil, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, marinade and grill.

Tabouleh salad: Soaked fine bulgar wheat, chopped parsley, cubed tomato, finely diced green onion, olive oil, lemon juice, salt

Grilled peaches: Grill ripe but firm peach halves on grill (flesh side down) for a few minutes to achieve a grilled mark and to caramelize sugars in fruit.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and add a scoop of french vanilla ice cream.

Apricot turnovers:  Roll out store bought frozen puff pastry and cut into squares, add a spoon of apricot jam and fold over into a triangle, egg wash the top and sprinkle with coarse sugar.  Bake at 375 F until puffed and broil a few seconds at the end.   Garnish with fresh apricots in season. 

Beef Shawarma

At the grocery store I picked up a few packs of pan fry thin steaks (like the type for schnitzel) which was reduced for a quick sale.

Sometimes they end up super dry once cooked so this time I thought I'd give shawarma a try with this cut, the yogurt marinade it stays in all night should help keep it moist.

Here is the main recipe

These are a few trips I discovered for this cut:

Take it out of the fridge to let it come to room temp before baking.

Pour the mixture into a strainer and weight the meat down with something heavy. Let it sit until you see most of the extra moisture has leaked out the bottom.

Get your oven going on the highest (550 F) for me, and leave the pan in there to get super hot.

Now spread out the meat well on a parchment, it should be as spread out as possible.

Remember we don't put salt in the marinade overnight as it draws out liquid so salt it now on the parchment and then once the oven and tray is hot bring the pan out (using your oven mitts) and slide the parchment onto the tray.

Bake the meat and at some point a lot of liquid comes out so get a bowl and make a spout in the corner of the parchment, tip the tray a bit until all the liquid comes out into the bowl and discard.

Now bake until the parchment and meat is browned. It goes quickly so keep an eye on it.

You'll end up with juicy delicious shawarma strips!!

Here I served it with my homemade turnip pickles (recipe here) and my 24 hour kirby pickle slices I made two days ago (recipe here from last year's batch)

Mahshi - stuffed vegetables

Sometimes the most time consuming recipes can actually be the most relaxing to make. Today I spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen, but it was all well worth it and very enjoyable.

I made " summer time grape leaves" (my summer blend is just herbs, garlic, olive oil and rice, no heavy tomato paste, meats and spices like the winter version)

Another summer version I make is using yogurt but lately

I've preferred them like this as the leaves stay fresher in the fridge this way (and they make yummy snacks all through the night)

I can serve with a mint/yogurt sauce on the side though!

A trip to the arabic grocer the other day had me hauling quite a bit of stuff home, well it's Ramadan and there are so many specials! :)

These little white eggplants were the cutest, so fresh and their skins tender and pearly, I've never cooked with them before but my mother has mentioned using them a long time ago.

I restrained myself and only got 2 because eggplants cause a throat allergy for me so I figured this would be a treat that hopefully would be ok.

I reserved less than a third of the rice blend and added fresh dill to that and then stuffed the vegetables and cooked them off in a small pot separate from the other grape leaves. I stuffed a few grape leaves with the dill mixture in the vegetable pot though :)

For photo instructions on how to roll the grape leaves refer to my older post here

Guess I don't have to cook tomorrow! And now I'll leave you with a photo sequence of putting together my mahshi dish.