douma recipe featured in beirut restaurant!

a recipe from douma my family village is featured on the website of a beirut restaurant, semsom...it's a fun layout

with a recipe of a lebanese mountain version of gnocchi, maakroun, or macaroni!! in writing this, the history of this word begins to intrigue me—did the arabs get it from the italians or vice versa. so after only a few minutes of internet research, i find this from noted food historian and writer clifford wright, excerpted from an article which you can read in its entirety by clicking on the link:

The origin of macaroni lies not with the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, or Chinese, but apparently with the Arabs.

so we can add this to the long list of arab inventions, which food-wise includes the following words with at least arabic and persian origins: sugar, coffee, alcohol, artichoke, alfalfa, apricot, candy, caraway, jasmine, lemon, orange, safflower, saffron, spinach, sumac, syrup, sherbet, sorbet, soda, tahini, tarragon, and tuna. and of course the ice cream cone is purported to have been invented by an arab-american, as described by ideafinder.com:

Syrian immigrant Ernest Hamwi rolled up some of his “zalabia” (a waffle-like pastry) from his pastry cart into cones and gave them to Arnold Fornachou, who had run out of paper dishes to serve his ice cream. Word spread quickly though the Fair and many other vendors began selling ice cream in waffle cones. These edible ice cream cones became so popular that everyone wanted to take credit for there invention and many did.

the lebanese restaurant semsom is located in beirut and is franchising out into the wider world! here are the current locations:

Lebanon

Sassine plaza, Ashrafieh, Lebanon
Tel: +961 (0)1 - 20 04 32
+961 (0)3 - 46 66 46

CityMall, Seaside, Level 1, Dora, Lebanon
Tel: +961 (0)1 - 87 37 25
+961 (0)3 20 26 29

Le Mall, Sin El-Fil, 1st Floor

KSA
Bin Suaiman Center,Prince Sultan Road
Jeddah, KSA

Qatar
Opening soon!

here's your chance to open a lebanese restaurant, with a great philosophy of combining lebanese traditional with lebanese modern cuisine!

semsom also had a recipe competition open until january 31, 2011 for your best lebanese recipe!

do you, my beloved readers, think i should submit one from alice's kitchen?

if so, let me hear from you and which one do you suggest?!

also, please let me know how you like this diversion with words from my more typical blog entries!

with love and holiday blessings,

linda

mhammara—lebanese grilled red pepper and walnut dip—divine holiday appetizer straight from lebanon!

i discovered luscious mhammara dip on a bus tour of monasteries my mother and i took with the Greek Orthodox church choir from our village of douma in 1998. before sunrise we joined the initially quiet small group on the bus as they picked us up at Hotel Douma where we were staying...the lovely circular building in the area at the edge of town that used to be called snobar, or the pine tree grove, which you can see still surround the hotel in the photo. the hotel reminds me of the capitol records building in hollywood near where i grew up. 

okay, the douma hotel is not as tall! but they are both built in the round! and it is a great place to stay when visiting douma!

the aroma of arabic coffee perfumed the bus, and a darbuka was tucked silently next to a young man in the front of the bus. mama and i were strategically placed next to the driver, who, once the sun energized the group was clapping with both hands (not on the steering wheel) to accompany the singing and drumming, while manuevering beirut traffic, which as we descended from the mountains, thickened much like the bottom of the arabic coffee pot into a dense mass.

and this is how the day began. mama soon joined in the singing in arabic of the lebanese national anthem, which she remembered from her childhood!

we stopped for ghadda, the main meal of the day at 1 or 2 in the afternoon, at an amazing restaurant in the mountains, after having visited two wonderful monasteries full of icons and mosaics and relics. the long table spread with a beautiful feast of appetizers included mhammara, mounds of fresh vegetables, dozens of little plates, and entrees that were mouth-watering delicious!

the mhammara dip wasn't something i grew up with that mama made, but i fell in love with it, and when i returned to the states, devised a recipe which is in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking on page 175 to replicate what i remembered and loved. my recipe is a simple and quick one, that is a hit whenever served—and is quickly made up in my mini food processor.

the basic ingredients are sweet red peppers, walnuts, sesame seeds, garlic, salt, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses (dibbis rimman)—a favorite of northern lebanese for tartness in fattoush instead of lemon juice, some chili paste, and bread crumbs to absorb the juices if it's too runny.

starting out with fresh red peppers, just like the eggplant in baba ghannouj—see my previous post—these beauties get roasted right over the flame until the skin is blackened, which is a much quicker process than for the eggplants. immediately they're popped into a paper bag that is closed to retain the flavors and to slowly cool. while they are on the stove top charring, i add chopped garlic and salt to the processor and pulse them together.

next, i carefully and easily peel all of the charred skin and discard, rinsing the pepper under cool water to remove any bits of black. i then cut out and remove the stem, membrane, and seeds. any liquid inside the pepper can be added to the food processor, along with fresh garlic, salt, the red peppers, walnuts, sesame seeds, lemon juice, sesame seeds, pomegranate molasses, and chili paste. 

i pulse this very quickly so as not to make a pureé, as i prefer this to be a bit on the chunky side, rather than creamy. it tastes great both ways, only a matter of preference.

garnish with a walnut half, and serve with pita chips, arabic bread, or any type of crackers!

a great complement to hommus and baba ghannouj for a holiday party!

sahtein, happy cooking, and happy holidays!

makhlouta-a perfect winter soup!

hearty is an understatement! shourbat makhlouta—the name of this hardy, protein-rich soup comes from the arabic word for "mixed up" or "mixture" since it is made by "shopping" in your kitchen pantry for a little bit of every grain, legume, and bean that you have. because i am an avid cook, as was my beloved mother, alice, like hers my pantry is full as a commercial pantry with many varieties of beans, grains, and legumes to enrich the soup. my sweet lebanese friend josephine tells me her mother used lamb to fortify the soup, while my dear mom's was strictly vegetarian, so of course mine is too.

in this easy-to-make lebanese soup recipe, it takes about a cup and a half of dried beans, grains, and legumes to about 7 cups of water, a couple of chopped onions, a generous amount of olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper all put into the pot, brought to a boil, and then simmered until everything is tender—about 1 1/2 to 3 hours. ladle into bowls with a drizzle of lemon juice to finish off with some pita chips on the side. from the recipe on page 54 in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking.

you can see in the detail photo how thick the soup has become because of the addition of red lentils, which cook and thicken quickly. the other ingredients in this particular batch starting with the large bean in the foreground are a tablespoon each of: scarlet runner beans from the garden, pintos, adzukis, small favas, white, cranberry (borlotti) beans also saved from the garden's summer crop that hid until they were too tough for fresh green beans, black beans, red and green lentils, garbanzos, split peas, kidney and red beans, black-eyed peas, yellow peas, whole wheat berries, barley, brown rice, and on the right you can see a corn kernel, also from summer garden that was too starchy for fresh eating, so i left the kernels on the cob to dry in the pantry, and just plucked them off the cob and into the pot for the soup. somehow even with the disparate sizes of ingredients, it all cooks to a wonderful nourishing tenderness.

my dear friend samar from lebanon tells me that this soup is traditionally made at the end of winter to clean out the pantry from the last year's stores, and this is just what my makhlouta turned out to be. in going through my pantry, i found some large fava beans from several years back tucked away in a corner. there were holes in the beans and some round black dry questionable looking bits suspiciously the same size and shape as the holes. these did not go into the soup!

but my curiousity as a gardener prevailed and i added water to the jar of beans and soaked them overnight. this is my usual method to determine seed viability before i plant beans, corn, and other vegetable seeds. this method also gives the seeds a head-start on slugs and birds, and others hungering after my tempting plump spring seeds.

after soaking, i rinse twice a day for a couple of days and observe to see if they sprout. (yes, this is how bean and seed sprouts are made!) and if you have been following my blog, by now you understand this is not for the squeamish or faint of heart!

here's what happened:

they sprouted in spite of the bug holes, which you can see! these large favas are also called horse beans, and they are larger than a quarter, and after soaking get even bigger. they are nitrogen-fixing plants and enrich the garden soil, and are a very hardy staple for winter gardens in most mediterranean countries. my parents' Lebanese mountain village of Douma is no exception.

so i planted them, as my new lebanese friend joseph (yusef) who has a new falafel and produce stand in southeast portland (farmer's backyard at s.e. 11th and madison) suggested it's not too late to plant fava beans. in the pacific northwest, they're best planted in the fall for spring harvest. often if i plant them in the spring, the summer flowering plants, whose blossoms have a most lovely fragrance attract black aphids; while the fall-planted seeds produce before the season of the aphids. mid-january must be a mid-winter planting. it will be interesting to see how these fare. so here's my new fava bean bed planted last weekend before covering with soil, with the first sign of spring—a snowdrop—blooming nearby! on a dark grey and misty day, this life-giving activity energizes and gives me hope for the sunny days to come!

after planting it's time to take off the muddy gloves and come inside to enjoy a steaming hot bowl of shourbat makhlouta! sahtein!

 this post was entered in the Grow Your Own roundup for january 2010, hosted by house of annie!

alice's kitchen returns to LA for 100th anniversary of...

the church founded by my great uncle, Fr. Gerasimos Sawaya, of Douma, Lebanon, St. Anne's Melkite (Byzantine rite) Greek Catholic Church. copies of alice's kitchen were given in honor of my mother, Alice, and the Sawaya family to guests attending a banquet to celebrate this event. people who knew mama, and others were thrilled to receive copies of the book, which along with so many recipes, includes history, historical photos, and memoir. Fr. Sawaya looks a lot like my father, Elias, quite handsome, indeed.

this summer i was craving tabbouli salad made from my homegrown tomatoes, parsley, mint and green onions (recipe of course from alice's kitchen!). it is served in little romaine "boats" and picked up to eat like a taco! not much bulgar in it compared to what is often called tabbouli in the west. the winter version of tabbouli, called safsouf, has much more bulgar since greens are not as abundant as in the summertime.

i am delighted to be posting on this new blog, with color photos showing what many of our traditional lebanese dishes look like in full beautiful color.

things are winding down in the garden, so i will have more time to post. and i will include some images of the abundant summer harvest, like this one.