Roasted Vegetable Salad

This is such a vibrant salad. Considering it is so hot here, even over Christmas, not everyone wants a bowl of hot roasted vegetables. It’s easy to prepare before-hand and features plenty of local and seasonal ingredients. It’s wonderful with turkey, but also makes a great accompaniment to grilled seafood.

Ingredients:

• 500g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 1 bunch of radishes
• 5 small beetroots, quartered
• 250g roca (arugula)
• 1 tbsp warm water
• 1 big pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp honey
• coarse salt to taste
• ¼ cup flaked almonds
• 2 tbsp labneh
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• squeeze of lemon
• 1 tsp sumac
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• herbs for garnish (za’atar or coriander)

Gingerbread lamp with stained glass

I've been inspired by the region - hard not to be really. Last year, we made a gingerbread house, and it turned out quite nicely. But the snow on the roof and the Hansel and Gretel theme doesn't really gel in this part of the world. So, here is a Middle-Eastern-Appropriate gingerbread, both in flavour and construction. And you know what? Easier than it looks...


Ingredients

• 250g butter, softened 
• 2/3 cup soft brown sugar 
• 1/2 cup date honey (dhibs)
  2 eggs, beaten 
• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup self raising flour
• 2 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 15-20 clear boiled sweets (lollies), crushed with a mortar and pestle into coarse powder.

Roast Turkey with Freekeh

 Ok - this is not the easiest part of a Christmas Dinner, and so breaks my usual slap-dash rules of only 3-4 steps. Sorry about that - nothing to do. It is however not a hard recipe as far as roast turkeys go - just a simple roast, no brining or anything like that. Let's start you with the stuffing, which is really just chopping, browning and stirring, then I'll move through the trickier bits...

Freekeh Stuffing Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra, to drizzle
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 150g minced veal
• 205g (1¼ cups) freekeh (washed well and soaked for 1 hour)
• 2 tsp shawarma spice
• 1½ tsp salt
• 750ml (3 cups) chicken stock or water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp ghee
• ½ cup pistachios
• ¼ cup dried barberries
• Salt and pepper to taste

Batheeth pies

Wow - haven't posted a recipe in ages. It's silly season again, that's why. Only time for silliness, nothing else. In the midst, I have been preparing some Christmas recipes for Ahlan Gourmet. They are a twist on the original, and bring a little of the Middle East into the traditional English recipes.

The first is Batheeth pies - a replacement to mince pies, which incidently I hate. I love looking at them, but they're so rich and unbalanced that I rarely find one I like. These however I have been eating by the dozen. Batheeth is something I was introduced to by a fellow food blogger -  La Mere Culinaire - at her own home (I wrote about the experience here - fab day, cooking with her mum.) It's a date and spice mix, with flour and ghee to bind. Very commonly seen on Emirati tables - it's very easy to make, and tastes great with a coffee (or gahwa)

Ingredients:

For the batheeth:

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 ½ cups chopped dried dates
• 1 tsp ginger
• ½ tsp cloves
• ¼ cup good quality ghee
• 3 cardamom pods
• pinch salt

Pomegranate and Quinoa salad

I've just discovered that you can cook quinoa in a rice cooker. This means no more sticky-together or crunchy bits, no more burned quinoa stuck to the bottom of the pan, and no more constant checking. Just plop in 2 cups of quinoa to 4 cups of water, turn it on and go away.

As a result, I'm finally cooking more quinoa.

Quinoa has a very woody flavour, and it needs something with it to temper the strength of this, particularly if you are trying to get kids to eat it. I've tried it warm and curried (here), which I thought was pretty good, but it got the definite thumbs down from the kids. This time, I served it cold, and to balance the raw and dusty flavour, added pomegranate seeds for sweetness and mint for freshness. And pine nuts, just because I like them.

Chicken and camel milk tagine

 I have a new tagine. It's a fancy one - Staub. It cost way too much, but it's the first tagine I've had that does the full job - it works on the stovetop, and in the oven. Until now, I've used a 45 year old enamel pot that came to me through my mother in law, and I will still use that lovely pot, but the added bonus with a tagine like this is that it looks damn good on a table.

I'm still inspired by my trip to Jordan, and after cooking mansaf the other day, I thought of my tagine, and chicken. Chicken is so tender and juicy when poached in milk. Jamie Oliver has a great recipe that I had made when my family still included regular dairy in the diet. But now I use camel milk due to its better casein profile. It also has a richer flavour, a light tang and an incredible creaminess despite its low fat content. Camel milk is readily available here in Dubai - for those who can't find it, substitute with buttermilk rather than regular milk, otherwise it will be a little bland, as I use fillets in this recipe rather than a whole chicken.

Lamb Mansaf

I've just returned from Jordan, inspired. Some people think all arabic food is the same, and living in Dubai, I can tell you I've had tabouleh and humous up to here (imagine me gesturing at my larynx).

However, I've recently been delving into the different cuisines of the area, and have also been treated to an Arabic food crawl by Arva Ahmed in Deira, and I'm finally starting to find some real gems. One of them is Mansaf, the traditional lamb and yoghurt dish of Jordan.

Ingredients (notes on ratios below)

• Lamb with bone in (I used a 1.8kg leg. Shanks would also work very well)
• Laban or yoghurt
• chicken or vegetable stock
• shawarma spice (my recipe at end if you want to mix your own)
• olive oil or ghee for browning meat
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• rice cooked with a pinch of saffron threads (in the rice-cooker)
• coriander (cilantro) leaves and toasted nuts (pine nuts and slithered almonds work well) to garnish

Shakshouka

Shakshouka (or shakshuka) is a dish I first tried at Baker and Spice, Dubai. It hails from Northern Africa, but other areas over the middle east, and the Ottoman empire also lay a claim to it's invention. Simply, it is baked eggs in a rich sauce. This is fairly close to the version found in Baker and Spice, and now at least once a month at my own table - either for breakfast, or an easy dinner.

Ingredients:

• 500g Tomatoes (chopped) either tinned or fresh (a mixture works best)
• 1 red capsicum (diced)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 3 cloves of garlic (crushed) or to taste
• 2 tsp ground coriander (I like to toast mine from seed and crush)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp crushed chilli
• 1 tbsp sugar
• salt and pepper to taste
• a handful of fresh coriander (chopped)
• 4 eggs

Balaleet - An Emirati Breakfast

Noodles for breakfast? With fragrant spices and omelet morsels? Doesn't sound like the kind of thing you could just whip up every morning for breakfast? Well the Emiratis do - citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Maybe not every morning, but more than just sometimes they might prepare this traditional vermicelli noodle dish.

It sounds harder than it is - it's one of those no-measure things, and tastes good both hot and cold. I tasted it for the first time at the Cultural Breakfast in Dubai, and learned how to make it myself last week at La Mere Culinere's cooking session. This is my own slap-dash version.

Ingredients:

Fattoush - the salad for non-salad lovers

I hate salads that taste like a pile of grass. I'm more of a caesar salad person - sure, I like some leaves, but I prefer them crunchy, and then I want a whole heap of non-salad items in there, like bacon, eggs, bread and cheese. Or maybe a complete lack of leaves, like in a greek salad - again, with the cheese, and something tangy like olives. But just don't serve me weeds - ugh.

This region has a famous salad, and I'd never heard of it before I arrived - but now I order it everywhere. I'm on my own special mission to find the best Fattoush (also fatoush, fattush and probably a myriad of other spellings) that can be found in Dubai. So far, it's a war between Bayt al Wakeel on the Bur Dubai side of the creek in the middle of the Old Souk, and Tagine, at the One and Only Royal Mirage.

Fattoush's wonderful addition is fried bread. It's like an arabic crouton, but better, and I make mine in the oven and they taste just as good. These croutons are so awesome, I eat half of them before I even make the salad. But the salad is pretty good too - it's fresh, aromatic, colourful and crunchy.