Okra Stew - Bamia

Middle Eastern Okra & Lamb stew (Bamia)

- Lamb shoulder (as much as you'd like, I only had a few uncooked pieces leftover from the poutine the other day)

- 1 bag frozen okra, thawed

- 4-6 cloves garlic

- 1 tbsp Oil & 1 tbsp olive oil 

- Salt & blackpepper

- Passata tomato (strained tomato, or canned, or tomato paste, or fresh chopped tomatoes)

It's very simple!

1- Heat the oil and brown the pieces of lamb shoulder, season with salt and pepper. Add a couple of cloves of garlic and water to cover.  Simmer on medium low until tender (about 1 or 2 hours)

2- In another saucepan add some olive oil and the remaining cloves of garlic (roughly crushed) then add tomato paste or Passata or chopped tomatoes (strain water and set aside)  On medium heat just turn using a wooden spoon until all the raw flavour of the tomato is released and it smells nice and caramelized. Season with a tiny bit of salt.

Add the tomato to the lamb soup as well as the okra, bring it up to a near boil and then simmer again for another 30-40 minutes until okra is tender.

RICE: 

- 2 cups golden or Sila basmati (parboiled basmati, easily found in an Afghan store) 

 Wash until water runs clear and soak for 3-5 hours in a large bowl with plenty of water.

In a large pot bring water to a boil, add a drizzle of oil and enough salt to season water (as if making pasta).  When it's boiling strain the rice from it's soaking water add to the boiling water, boil until al-dante and drain in a fine colander. Splash with cool water to cool it down (at this point you can just leave it until you're ready to cook it an hour before serving time. 

You can either drizzle with oil in a baking dish and bake covered with foil OR do it stove top, today I've done it stove top and experimented with a bit of Tah dig (crispy layer Persian style... it didn't turn out that dark but I'm trying!!! )

If you want to steam the rice and not worry much layer the bottom of your non stick pot with pieces of thinly sliced potato.  

Using a non stick pot I add a drizzle of oil (and a tsp of butter) to the bottom and a sprinkling of water  (add the potatoes at this point OR not) a tiny sprinkling of salt (just because!) and then I add the rice from the colander (it should be seasoned enough from boiling but if not add a sprinkle of salt to it and even a drizzle of oil to the colander and then using a slotted spoon move it gently into the pot 

You do not want to mix up the rice in the colander as to break up the grains so be gently. 

Once it's all in the pot create a dome shape and use the back of a spoon to push down a couple of places in the rice to create "steam holes" (I added a knob of butter to the top too as to melt down while cooking) 

Adding a few tbsp of water over the rice and covering with a lid wrapped in a kitchen towel I set the pot on medium high for 3-5 mins and then to low for 45 mins - 1 hour. 

When it's done you can remove the lid and flip it onto a large serving plate (if it worked out you'll get a nice crispy golden "crown" on top) and all your guests will be impressed! 

Enjoy! (while I continue to work on my crispy tah dig technique!)

Kabuli Pilau (attempt 1)

My mum and I came across this tutorial video on youtube for one of our favourite dishes. Instantly I was inspired to give it a go.

We all adore this rice dish which comes out of Afghanistan and it's a must whenever we're ordering from an Afghani restaurant.  Mum has always been fascinated with this dish, I guess when she lived in Pakistan she knew Afghanis who used to serve this speciality.

There seem to be several ways to make this pilau but one thing my mother always remembered was that sugar was used to achieve that distinct shade of colour that Kabuli Pilau is known for.

I recall doing a search a few years ago for cooking instructions on youtube with very few results, but today there seem to be so many tutorials!  We combed through them and my mother showed me this one specifically. I decided to half the recipe (we don't have enough people to enjoy 4 cups of rice! :))
Two cups of rice is the norm in our house, so it was easy to just half all the other ingredients.

I wrote it down in my notes which I'm sharing with you all below as well as my step by step photos, and you can also watch the original video for more detailed instructions. The video is made by a nice young lady who explains to us her mother's method for making this dish.


Soak rice 3-5 hours in advance.

I believe you're supposed to use Parboiled basmati rice which can be found in an Afghani grocer, or even a Pakistani one, it goes by the names of "Golden basmati" or "sila basmati"  It looks more beige than your typical white "tilda" style basmati rice.



Kabuli Pilau

1 cup carrots, julienned

1/3 cup red raisins

1/4 tsp cardamom

1/2 cup oil for frying (not olive oil! Use a plain vegetable oil that is suitable for frying)

Heat oil, add shredded carrots and cook until tender, add raisins and continue to cook.  Strain from the oil mixture and add to a foil pouch pocket and close, setting aside for later.


For the rice!

2 cups rice

Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil
Add strained soaked rice cook until done half way through (like an al dante pasta?)   Add the strained rice into a large pot and set aside.



Mix ingredients blow in a saucepan, heat:

1/2 cup oil
1/3 cups sugar

takes 5-8 minutes on medium high until sugar is dark and melted, bubbles will begin to rise to the surface.  Remove immediately at this point and pour over strained rice in the pot.  Create a sort of "dome" with the rice in the pot (maybe this helps with steaming?)

******** WARNING: Be VERY careful with the sugar/oil mixture, it can be extremely dangerous.  Keep children and pets out of the kitchen and pour it over the rice away from the stove area as little drops can pop out and onto the stove/elements causing small grease/sugar flareups.

Have your kitchen sink empty and set the empty hot pot in the sink, allow it to cool there safely.  When its cooled you can add hot or warm water and let the extra remaining sugar residue dissolve before you safely wash it with soap.

Add foil (or parchment!) pouch with carrot/raisin mixture over the rice and to the side, just lay it in the pot.

Drizzle:

1/3 cups water (for steaming)


Place pot of rice on high heat for less than 5 mins, reduce to medium cook for 20-25 mins.

** There is cumin added in the video recipe but I omitted it and it's not listed in my notes

Results, I'm not sure... it needs to be steamed on a much lower heat as mine nearly burned at the bottom.  I also feel like the rice was a bit chewy (maybe from being coated in the hot oil/sugar)  The ones at the restaurant are more "fluffy"

Perhaps since I halved the recipe I should have used a smaller pot, the big  pot has too much surface area over the heat.

I'm going to work on it with my mother a bit more and see if we can do an attempt 2.  For now if you have success yourself then let me know how it goes, I think I just haven't perfected the steaming process well (ran into the same issue with a Persian recipe two years ago)

Vegetarian Maqluba مقلوبة

Today I made Maqluba, a famous dish across the middle east, although the Palestinians and Jordanians tell me it originated with them.

Maqluba means upside down, because the pot is flipped upside down to reveal the meats (or chicken) vegetables and rice in a nice form or mould.

This dish has a lot of flavour so I decided to make it vegetarian because lately a lot of my dishes contained meat and even though the meat can be omitted for an equally delicious meal perhaps people feel less encouraged to make it that way.

Here we go. It's as simple as pie!

The vegetables I used today are the following, the traditional:

- Eggplant

- Onion

- Potato

- Cauliflower

Less traditional:

- Yellow zucchini

- Carrots

Technique:

1. Soak your rice, today I used parboiled rice through we've used basmati or long grain rice with this dish before and it all works well.
Wash and soak the rice for 30 minutes or so or while your prepping the veggies.

2. Get a pot of oil ready or your deep fryer and begin frying these vegetables in batches until everything is fried up and lightly sprinkled with salt after it is removed from the oil and left to drain on paper towel.

3. Boil the kettle.

4. Layer the fried vegetables in the pot and scoop the rice over it.

5. Prepare the boiled water, enough for the amount of rice you decided to make. 1.7 cups for every 1 cup of water is a good ratio. With parboiled and soaked rice you could do less.

Mix the following spices with the water:

1 1/2 tsp arabic 7 spice

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground clove

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 dried lime (loomi amani, found at arabic stores) or in my case it is a dried keylime from last fall that I bought in large batches on sale after making a yummy keylime bundt cake.

I threw some whole allspice in because I had just bought them and wanted to see how they are, but I think ground allspice has more flavour as it is released from inside.

Salt (depending on the amount of rice, 1 tsp per cup is good)

Soup cubes or if you want to use vegetable stock or a meat stock go ahead and replace the hot water with stock of your choice.


Mix all the spices and soup cubes and lime with the water and gently pour it over the rice in the pot. If you want to add some oil to the rice use the oil you fried your veggies in, just 2 tbsp or so.

Bring the pot to a boil on the heat then cover and simmer on medium low until all is absorbed and the rice is tender. About 30-40 mins or so.

Once it's done take it off the heat and prepare your garnish

-Peeled blanched almonds

-Pine nuts

If your almonds like mine are not already peeled then boil then briefly until the skins feel puffy then strain and you can pop the almond right out of it's jacket easily. Dry the almonds and heat some oil in a small pot on medium high.

Add the almonds and toast them in the oil until they are browned (keep a close eye on them!) Once they're done remove and set on paper towel and toast the pine nuts and remove.

Now for the fun part, bring a large serving plate or pan and put it over the pot (you can use a towel to grip the handles and make sure you're holding both the handles of the pot and the tray together and with a quick move flip it over, set it down and slowly pull the pot upwards to reveal the lovely Maqluba.

Sprinkle the nuts over and dig in !! I served it with a bowl of plain balkan or greek style yogurt!

Enjoy!

P.S if you want to do a meat/chicken Maqluba then you boil your beef or chicken ahead of time in salted seasoned water with some spices (cinnamon, bay leaf, allspice, cloves..) and then you add it to the bottom of the pot and layer the vegetables over and then the rice in the same way above, the dish cooks briefly so the meat should be done ahead of time.

Baghali Polo

Here is a familiar dish that I recently learned had roots in Persia. My mother was introduced to this dish by my sister's childhood Kurdish friend when her mother brought a plate of it over to our house. It's a dill and fava bean rice, known as Baghali Polo in Persian Cuisine.

Favas in Arabic are Baqila, and they are very popular all over the Middle East. In Iraq they are known as Bajila and the dry form is boiled and served as a nice soup - introduced to you hopefully in another post sometime - and the green form is also cooked in this Persian style rice.

All that said I doubt they are as pouplar anywhere as in Egypt, where it is a hearty rustic dish that everyone is familiar with and known as "foul mudamas"

Just like peas and mint are a pouplar combination favas go beautifully with Dill, Shbint in Kurdish or Shibitt in Arabic and Farsi or sometimes Sheveen in Farsi too.
The rice my mother knew was made with a round calarose type rice in Kurdistan but upon searching almost all the Persian recipes were made with a nice fluffy basmati, and being my favourite rice I thought to go with it.

I've combined two recipes that I found online but it's a simple recipe.

-Lots of chopped fresh dill

-Shelled green baby favas (I had thawed from frozen)
-Soaking basmati in salted water for a few hours

-Took the recommendation from one recipe to sautee the fava with some garlic and set aside

-Bring Basmati to a boil for 10-12 mins in a big pot of salted water, drained and rinsed.

Then it was all assembled layering the rice over some oil and a few drops of water and then adding dill, fava and more rice until the last layer was rice. Making holes in the rice and steaming on high for 8 mins or so then adding a bit of water (less than half the amount of rice) and steaming with a lid covered in a kitchen towel for 40 mins or so on a low setting.
A little melted butter can be added to the top when it's done then flipped out onto a pan and gently arranged for serving.

Next time I'd like to add more dill, lots more and see what other things I can do to learn how to perfect the cooking process. I'd also like to add more chopped dill to it after it's cooked because I like the fresh taste.

Any tips and ideas are welcome, feel free to comment and let me know what you think.