This was my first time making meatballs in a non-Pakistani style, but they turned out well. I loosely got this recipe from my Good Housekeeping cookbook, but I made some changes. The meatballs stay soft and flavorful because of a pureed onion and garlic mixture.
Okay, so it doesn’t *look* all that pretty, but it tastes great.
We go through a lot of rice at my house. I think my Irish-German-Syrian husband has a bit of Asian in him, because the man will not eat bread except at breakfast. There must always be rice, and plenty of it. Rice, however, can get old and stale….or just a bit boring if it’s plain boiled rice.
My mom and I have a “never throw out anything unless it’s gone bad” compulsion, so I have this really simple way of jazzing up a-few-days-old rice into fresh dinner. Using broth and soy sauce, I make a cross between risotto (because you can make it as creamy as you want) and fried rice (because I usually opt for Asian flavors). It’s also a great way to use up leftover anything, because already-cooked chicken, seafood, beef, vegetables can be added with some extra flavor to jazz up otherwise plain rice.
The last one I made was a Ginger Beef Rice, so that’s the recipe I’ll share. Measurements (and ingredients) are variable, because you can add more/less/none/something else to change up the flavors.
Recipe in here: (more…)
I love the Farmer’s Market. Have I told you this before? Well, I do. I love the Farmer’s Market. In the fall and winter, you get apples, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. In the summer, you get everything you could ever want – berries, peaches, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh herbs.
This dish isn’t fancy. It just tastes good, because it highlights the summer market’s best picks with very simple ingredients. The chicken, cooked slowly, stays soft and releases a broth that flavors the vegetables. Crusty croutons soak up all the juices. *sigh* It’s beautiful.
The trick to the flavor and moistness of the chicken is the marination. I use this trick for all kinds of chicken – for grilling, flouring or breading and pan-frying, or baking, like this.
Here you go: (more…)
Think back to your idea of a traditional kitchen, filled with a bunch of women, sharing stories over big bowls of food while they prepare a big meal for their family. Kibbe is that kind of food. There’s a big pot of meat, a big pot of dough, and a bunch of hands rolling and filling and frying while the kitchen echos with laughter and stories.
My friend/mother-in-law, Fatimah, tells me that being able to make kibbe is considered the mark of a great cook in Syria. I’m definitely not there, but it was very fun spending an afternoon learning how to make this classic dish.
Everyone has their own recipe for kibbe (also called kubbe). There are two main ways to prepare it – in bars or in stuffed lemon-shaped dumplings. People from Shaam, especially Syrians, make the dumpling style. These can either be fried and dipped in plain yogurt to eat, or made with a cooked yogurt sauce called shakriya. You can also make them in a patty style and slow-cook them in a barbeque, then serve them with plain yogurt for dipping. I’ll show all three of these styles in this post. The hardest thing to do is stuff and shape the dumplings into the traditional lemon form. I’ll try to show as step-by-step of a process as I can, but really, it just takes a lot and lot and a lot of patience and practice to get it right – but it’s worth it!
Other great Kibbe posts
Kibbi Mihshiyya at Arabic Bites
Kubbe in Broth at Desert Candy
Recipe (and lots more pictures) here: (more…)
Sounds fancy, eh? It’s not. Don’t be alarmed. On Sunday nights, I usually try to make a big pot of something that we can eat for dinner and that will last Ameir and I all week to take to work/school for lunch. This came together so quickly, I was back to lounging on the sofa in no time. (Summer break!). This thick sauce would also be good over couscous or stuffed into a hoagie roll with cheese melted on top.
Recipe here (more…)
What kind of kabaabs drop out of school? Dum Kabaabs! (my husband, ladies and gentleman).
These little nuggets of yummy are called “dum kabaab.” I can’t really translate “dum” into one word, but it’s what you do to tea after you put the teabag in (let it steep) or what you do to rice after the water boils and you turn the heat low to let it finish (let it simmer/cook slowly?). At any rate, you sear meatballs in a pan, then top them with softened onions, tomatoes, and cilantro. (Like we did with bhindi, remember?) Also, these freeze really well with or without the onion-tomato mixture.
My mom makes these *perfectly* – all the kabaabs are the same shape and size, and everything is seasoned beautifully. Mine came out oddly shaped (some of them were triangular, I don’t know how that happened) and a little less seasoned than I’d like, but still good. I actually seasoned these lightly since I was making them for guests and I didn’t want them to be overwhelming – so add more spices for a stronger flavor.
Recipe here: (more…)
One year ago: Genius Solution to Pollution and Awakening
I love soup, and while tomato isn’t my favorite kind, I get a hankering for it every now and then. When that hankering occurs at midnight, the only thing you can do is grab a can of Campbell’s. *Ick.* I know, I was desparate. I tried to make it better by adding some oven-roasted tomatoes and using milk and chicken broth to dilute it instead of water. Okay, but not great. I had a lot leftover, and I needed something delicious and nutritious while studying for Criminal Law. (yes, yes, I am studying. The Rule of Lenny…uh…Lenity, and all that.)
I’m not sure if this is a jambalaya or just an extremely saucy risotto made with extra-diluted creamy tomato soup-broth. Anyways, it’s very filling and very good and very easy. It took me about 30 minutes maximum from kitchen to sofa, not including the 5 minutes it took me to make the marinade and the 1 hour where the stuff was soaking in the marinade.
Click here for recipe (more…)
This was the perfect dinner on a cold Friday night after a long, long week at school. We curled up watched old LOST episodes with bowls of this spicy, gingery chicken and vegetable braise lushing over rice. Okay, so lushing is not a word, but it somehow describes this meal. This one’s a keeper.
I’ve been wanting to try braising ever since I read a techniques article in Cooking Light a few months ago. So when I found the perfect ingredients in my fridge for an Asian-inspired dish, I decided to try it. Braising the chicken breast was nowhere as complicated as I thought it would be, and it made the chicken very flavorful and soft. I was just learning this technique, so I made it with one half of a chicken breast (cut into two pieces, one each for Ameir and I). It was actually enough for a very filling meal because of all the vegetables and rice.
To braise, you lightly brown the meat first, remove the meat from the pan, and cover the meat with some foil. Then add the vegetables to the same pan, deglaze with the stock, then simmer, then add the meat back and simmer. I added a middle step and simmered the stock with the vegetables before adding the meat. The liquid should not cover the meat, only come up the sides. Also, the key is to only simmer the meat – cooking it slowly is what gives it flavor and softness.
Click here for the recipe (more…)
This is an *awesome* (i kid you not. tasted like restaurant food) Peanut Curry Recipe from Simply Recipes. A creamy, gingery, spicy peanut sauce hugs every curve of the chicken and vegetables and pours luxuriously over rice. This was a great dish to break out of a “finishing leftovers” rut, and it came together so quickly and easily, too. I changed it a little from the recipe she had on her website. Yum. omigosh. Yum.
Click for recipe (more…)
Chicken with Chickpeas (and Potatoes, for fun)
Seasoned chicken cooked with chickpeas and potatoes. Delish. My mom cooks it with whole chicken pieces, which I think tastes better, but I didn’t have any so I shortcutted it with boneless chicken breast.
Click below for the recipe
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