Acknowledgements VI Introduction viii Cooking notes xii
contents
Almonds 1 Apricots 7 Artichokes 13 Beans 20 Burghul 29 Cardamom 35 Cheese 42 Chickpeas 52 Chillies 60 Cinnamon 70 Coriander 78 Couscous 86 Cumin 94 Dates 101 Eggplants 109 Figs 118 Garlic 124 Ginger 131 Honey 137 Lamb 144 Lemons 152 Lentils 159 Mint 166 Olives and Olive Oil 172 Orange-Blossom Water 182 Parsley 188 Pastry 193 Pine Nuts 206 Pistachios 212 Pomegranates 216 Quinces 220 Rice 226 Rosewater 235 Saffron 241 Sesame Seeds 248 Silverbeet and Spinach 253 Sumac 259 Thyme 264 Turkish Coffee 270 Vine Leaves 276 Watermelon 281 Yoghurt 286 Zucchini 292 Bibliography 297 Index 298
introduction This book is intended for anyone who is interested in discovering more about the culinary influence of the Middle East and how to use these foods and flavours in their own kitchens at home. Many people have some understanding of cooking from the Arab world, but it is usually based on their experience of limp pita bread and greasy kebabs from a grubby Lebanese takeaway. In more recent years there has also been a fashion for Moroccan food, with every other trendy bistro serving couscous and chermoula. But any deeper interest in Arab-influenced foods seems to have stopped here, which scarcely does them justice. The cuisines of the region we call the Middle East are as refined and complex as many other great cuisines of the world. My own interest in food and cooking began in the family home in suburban Melbourne. My culinary instincts are rooted in the flavours and traditions of Lebanon, as cooked by my grandmothers and mother. When my classmates were munching on their lunchtime sandwiches of Strasbourg and tomato sauce, I was tucking into a garlic-laden falafel. Using ingredients such as chickpeas, allspice, vine leaves and rosewater has always been as natural to me as breathing. When I embarked on my cooking career I followed the traditional route for a young Australian apprentice cook. I studied at trade school here in Melbourne while working in the kitchens of several outstanding local restaurants. The formal part of my training over, I then spent a number of years overseas, cooking in France, Italy, Austria and Hong Kong, honing my skills, extending my repertoire, and scarcely giving a thought to childhood dishes like stuffed vine leaves and kibbeh nayeh. Over the last 12 years or so, since heading up my own kitchen, I have been able to synthesise the various influences of my culinary life and to produce the sort of food viii
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that I have always wanted to cook: not traditional Lebanese dishes, but rather food which, for me, captures the essence of the Middle East and expresses it in the best western tradition. I am all for progress and evolution, in the kitchen as in any other field. Never before has the spread of information and ideas been as easy. As a result, most people know a little about many different cuisines, and are happy to incorporate ideas from Thailand, Mexico, Italy or Morocco in their own cooking. There are, of course, those purists and traditionalists who abhor this evolution – and when it comes to the arbitrary mish-mashing together of completely incongruous ingredients, I too have been known to shudder. Such a lack of discrimination is, I feel, all about the quest for novelty, with little understanding or respect for the traditions of the cuisines used. But, surely things are no different than they ever were? There have always been fads and fashions in food. Over the centuries, as new ingredients spread to different regions they were quickly adopted and used ad nauseam until they found their own place and level in local culinary traditions. Without this eternal quest for new and different ideas we would still be munching on lentils and cabbage. While I believe that good cooking is about understanding how to balance flavours and textures and respecting an ingredient’s heritage, I also believe that this understanding does not necessarily have to be instinctual. It comes through experience. With this book I hope to encourage people to learn about and use ingredients which are close to my heart . Some, like rice or apricots are well known; others, like sumac or cardamom, may be less familiar. Most are relatively easy to track down, although a few will require a visit to a specialist Middle Eastern food store or good delicatessen. I have certainly not provided a comprehensive or definitive list of ingredients, but rather a subjective list of my own favourites, used in recipes which I feel best reflect the spirit of Middle Eastern cooking. This book is not intended for the superchef – Middle Eastern food, is after all, largely just good home cooking. Many traditional dishes, though, are labourintensive and time-consuming to prepare. They have evolved over hundreds of years, developed by Middle Eastern women whose day and social life revolved around highly labour-intensive cooking techniques. But these days few people have the time or inclination to spend hours stuffing little exquisite morsels. Indeed, it seems as if the task of providing food every day for family, partner or oneself has become something of a chore. I firmly believe that one’s daily dinner should not be complicated, time-consuming and overworked. In the western world introduction
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we are blessed with an abundant and staggering array of fresh produce, and this should drive our repertoire. A dish can be transformed by the simplest things – and it is this detail which the following recipes are about. Remember then, that while some of the dishes might sound exotic and mysterious, they are based on traditions which are, after all, everyday fare in another culture. In the pages that follow then, you will find a range of different dishes. Some, like the pickled pork belly, require a certain amount of planning ahead, even if they are not in themselves difficult and complicated to prepare; others are simple ideas, such as soft-boiled eggs sprinkled with dukkah, or a roast chicken stuffed under the skin with preserved lemon butter. Often it is simply a matter of looking at things from a different angle to make them exciting. A word about health: my own past has been littered with angioplasty, bypass operations and even a heart transplant. Today I simply have to be conscious of my cholesterol intake, but I am firmly against the sort of food fascism which dictates many people’s eating habits these days. For a healthy constitution, there must be balance. Don’t banish all fats from your diet, but make sure, instead, that you eat ‘healthier’ fats such as olive oil, rather than saturated animal fats. Dairy foods are critical for bone and teeth strength – but make sure you don’t eat a full-fat triplecream cheese every day. You might opt instead for yoghurt. The desserts, cakes and biscuits in this book are not intended to be eaten every day. In the Middle East, they are rarely eaten, except on special occasions, and for the most part a meal will finish with fresh fruit. Finally, a word about the construction of this book, and its co-author, my wife Lucy. I am a professional cook, she is not. On the other hand, she can write, whereas I (in good chef-like tradition) can barely manage a shopping list! As in all good partnerships, marriage included, it seems wise to divide the responsibilites on the basis of talents and inclinations. The text of this book has then, for the most part, been written by Lucy, and it is she too, who has been largely responsible for the translation of ingredients from commercial quantities to domestic. The recipes are written by me, but are the results of 40 years of eating, talking and experimenting with families and friends. The influences of my grandmothers, mother, sister-inlaw and sister-in-law’s mother, as well as countless other colleagues and mentors over the years, are all visible in this book. Greg Malouf 1999 x
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the recipes
Almond fritters 6
Artichokes cooked à la niçoise 19
Poussin roasted with cardamom and oregano (served on Fresh broad beans, artichokes and peas) 43
Squid stuffed with pork and pistachios 236
Honey窶田urd pies with rose-scented figs 224
almonds Fried Almond Risotto 5 Almond Fritters 6 Basboussa 7
OTHER ALMOND RECIPES Little Pigeon Bisteeya 78 Andalusian White Soup 138 Marinated Baby Lamb with Lebanese Nut Rice 164 Prawns Wrapped in Almond Kataifi 219 Honey-Curd Pies with Rose-Scented Figs 224 Sweet Nut-Stuffed Quinces 251 Moorish Spinach and Almond Salad 285 Sticky Lemon-Yoghurt Cake 322
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Many of our most popular foodstuffs are inedible and even poisonous in their wild state. And yet, as long ago as 3000
BC,
in an extraordinary feat of
primitive genetic engineering, our ancestors in the eastern Mediterranean learned how to select sweet, non-poisonous almonds from the bitter majority, and began the cultivation of one of the world’s most important nuts.
The extreme bitterness of wild almonds comes from a chemical called ‘amygdalin’, which breaks down to form cyanide (also known as ‘prussic acid’). A vestige of this remains today in bitter almonds, mainly grown for their volatile oil, which is used by confectioners to add flavour to marzipan. Their cousins, sweet almonds, are what we buy in the shops – usually in neat little plastic packages – either flaked, slivered or whole. When the Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh century, the almond was just one of many new foods they discovered. From the Persians they learned to use whole almonds in a variety of sweet and savoury dishes. They also learned to grind them to a fine meal for use in cakes and biscuits, and to use them to thicken and enrich savoury dishes and sweet milk puddings. As they expanded their empire westwards, the Arabs took with them many newly discovered foods, such as the almond tree, to cultivate in their new colonies and to trade with customers in Europe. As well as herbs and spices, vegetables and many varieties of fruit and nut trees, the Arabs also planted cuttings of the sugar cane they had found in Persia. The sublime partnering of almonds with sugar remains a key element in European confectionary and patisserie today, especially in Spain and Sicily, where it is a legacy of their two hundred years under Arab rule. Callissons and dragées (sugared almonds), nougat, praline, macaroons and of course marzipan were all delicious outcomes of this marriage. When the Arabs retreated from Europe in the thirteenth century, the tradition of making sweetmeats, in both Spain and Sicily, was carried on by the skilled Arab servant women of Catholic convents, and became something of a closed industry. The tradition and secrecy are still preserved today. On a recent trip to Andalusia we visited fancy sweet and pastry shops all around the region, and made a point of sampling as many convent sweets and cakes as we could manage. We can report that there are hundreds of different varieties – some flavoured with floral 2
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rosewater or orange-blossom water, some scented with spices such as cinnamon or cardamom. Others are enriched with egg yolks or chocolate, and many are mixed with candied citrus peel or chopped pistachio nuts for added texture. Although almonds are probably best known in sweet dishes, they are also used extensively in the Middle East in a range of savoury dishes. Persians and Moroccans like to combine almonds with fruit in a range of tagines and braised dishes, in which they cook down to a buttery softness. In Syria and Lebanon they are fried and used as a crunchy garnish for all kinds of chicken and rice dishes. SELECTING AND STORING ALMONDS
Almond trees have a lovely scented white blossom, making them an ornamental garden favourite. Soft, young green almonds are considered a real treat, and Greg recalls with great enthusiasm how he and his brothers would eagerly wait for spring, when the rush would be on to pick them straight from their backyard tree. It is very hard to find green almonds in the shops, so, other than picking them straight from the tree, you will have to make do with the mature version. All supermarkets, whole-food stores and delicatessens stock almonds – mainly the blanched, prepackaged kind, which are certainly easier and more convenient to use, but you also run a greater risk of ending up with stale or occasionally rancid nuts. Around Christmas time there tends to be an abundance of the whole nuts, still in their shells. For cooking rather than nibbling, though, it is easier to buy shelled almonds, and they have a much sweeter, fresher flavour if you buy them in their papery brown skins and blanch them yourself as described below. Probably the best place to buy nuts of any kind, if you want to ensure freshness, is from a Middle Eastern or nut specialist store, where you can be ensured a good brisk turnover. Fresh nuts have a high oil content and will turn rancid if not stored correctly. For this reason it is preferable to buy all types of nuts in smallish quantities, and eat them within a month of purchase. Once you have opened a packet of nuts they should be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. USING ALMONDS
It is not really practical to buy almonds whole in their shells – other than for the fun of cracking them around the Christmas dinner table. For cooking, the unpeeled nuts have a fresher flavour than the ready-blanched variety and it is very
ALMONDS
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easy to blanch and skin them yourself. Soak the almonds in boiling water for around 3 minutes, then drain them well and pat dry. The skin will then slip off easily, although for more stubborn ones making a small slit with a sharp knife will help. Next, they should be thoroughly dried (either on the window sill in the sun, or in a low oven for 5–10 minutes) before use or before storage. Blanched almonds can be ground to make a rich almond meal, which is infinitely superior to the ready-ground packaged stuff. One word of caution though: when grinding any nuts it is best to go slowly in short, quick bursts. Their high oil content means that they quickly mush down to an oily paste, rather than the light, fine crumbs you require. Recipes for sweet biscuits and cakes often call for blanched whole almonds, or halved almonds. Savoury dishes are more likely to suggest dry-roasting or frying them to bring out a deeper, toastier flavour. Middle Easterners nearly always fry almonds, turning them an appetising golden-brown, and adding a heady savoury flavour and incomparable crunchiness to any dish. Surprisingly, less oil is absorbed in deep-frying than in shallow-frying. The nuts usually take only a few minutes to colour, so always watch them with an eagle eye, and drain them well on kitchen paper once you remove them from the heat.
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FRIED ALMOND RISOTTO
Adding fried nuts and vermicelli threads to rice dishes is popular throughout the Middle East for the crunch and visual interest they add.
100 g flaked almonds 60 ml olive oil 50 g vermicelli nests, crumbled 60 ml olive oil, additional
2 tablespoons celery leaves, roughly chopped 100 g butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
1 small onion, quartered
Âź teaspoon allspice
400 g Vialone Nano rice
Âź teaspoon cinnamon
1 litre chicken stock,
60 g parmesan cheese, grated
simmering
salt and pepper
FRY THE ALMONDS in 60 ml olive oil until they are golden-brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain them on absorbent paper. Return the oil to the heat and add the crumbled vermicelli. Fry until golden-brown, then tip into a sieve to drain. Dry the vermicelli on kitchen paper. Prepare the risotto using the four-stage method on page 256, adding the vermicelli to the onions and proceeding as described. Add the third quantity of stock and, when it is reduced by half, add the almonds, celery leaves, butter and spices, plus 80 ml of stock. Stir well until the butter is incorporated. Add the cheese and stir again. Cover the pan and take it off the heat for one minute, then check the consistency and adjust seasonings. Serve immediately as an accompaniment to barbecues, grills or roast meats.
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ALMOND FRITTERS
These golden puffs of airy choux pastry are rolled in toasted almond flakes before deep-frying and then drizzled with a floral honey syrup. A deep-fryer makes the task easy, but you can manage just as successfully with a small saucepan of oil. If you don’t have a thermometer, the best way of testing whether the oil is hot enough is to throw in a small cube of bread. If it sizzles slowly to the top, turning goldenbrown in about 30 seconds, you can proceed. These fritters are delicious served with the rich and sophisticated Burnt Honey Ice-Cream (page 155), or perhaps a nutty Pine Nut Praline Ice-Cream (page 232).
50 g butter
4 eggs
3 teaspoons honey
1 litre vegetable oil for deep-frying
100 ml milk
150 g flaked almonds
100 ml water
icing sugar to dust
100 g plain flour
BRING THE BUTTER, honey, milk and water to the boil. Add the flour and beat
vigorously for 4–5 minutes until the dough comes cleanly away from the side of the pan and forms a ball. Place the dough in an electric mixer and beat in the eggs one at a time. Cover and refrigerate the mixture until ready to fry. Heat oil to 160°C (or test with a cube of bread). Shape fritter dough into smallish egg shapes using two dessertspoons. Roll each fritter in almond flakes and then deep-fry, four at a time, until the pastry is golden-brown and starting to split. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.
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