Knafeh (Middle Eastern shredded pastry dessert)

My kitchen Holy Grail has always been kataifi pastry, those hair thin strands of filo dough used in so many Middle Eastern sweet recipes. Alas, not something easily obtainable in the UK, at least if you live outside of an area with a large Middle Eastern population. I live in the north of the country, and while I am in a multicultural city, our speciality grocery stores are Asian and Chinese. So... kataifi pastry has always been there on the horizon, taunting me with its inaccessibility! I did find an online retailer who would deliver outside of London, but delivery costs were steep...

Fast forward to a food related discussion with a work colleague a couple of months ago, his family are from Sudan and he was telling me that one of the Asian grocery stores had started stocking some Egyptian and Sudanese ingredients, namely fresh and frozen molokhiya, Egyptian rice, karkadeh etc so I decided to take a trip. And oh yes, they had the above ingredients and more... I peered into the freezer and was met with boxes of frozen kataifi pastry! Hallelulya!

So what to make with this rare kitchen delight? For my first attempt there was no question, it would be knafeh. Syrup soaked kataifi pastry encasing a warm gooey cheese middle. Traditionally it's made with nablusi cheese or sweet cheese. An unsalted cheese with the texture of mozzarella. Indeed mozzarella (soaked to remove any salt) is a fine alternative. Though here I have a confession to make... I have a bit of a mental taste block as far as sweet cheese goes. I like my melty cheese savoury, and while I do enjoy traditional knafeh, I was making this primarily for people unfamiliar with the dish (and possibly with similar sweet cheese aversion) so I used rocotta for the filling instead. If you want the stringiness, then slice mozzarella and lay it on the pastry base on top of the ricotta and you have a pretty good facsimile.
I'd love to say that there are substitutions for kataifi pastry, but nothing really gives the same results. I tried years ago making knafeh with shredded wheat. it 'looked' okay, and tasted okay, but the taste was overwhelmingly of shredded wheat. I'm wondering whether taking leaves of filo pastry allowing them to air dry and then blitzing in a food processor may give close results, as the traditional recipes for kanafeh usually involve processing the pastry until you have a fine crumb, the strands are not absolutely neccessary...

Knafeh
200g kataifi pastry
100g margarine
Splash of orange blossom water

Filling
200g ricotta
Geranium blossom water (optional)

Syrup
100ml water
100ml sugar
Lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange blossom water
 

1. Break the kataifi pastry into small pieces, some recipes call for blitzing it in a food processor until the crumb is the size of couscous, I wanted some texture so I crumbled it in my hands until the pieces were roughly the size of rice grains
2. Stir in the melted margarine until it’s well mixed, add a little of the orange blossom water to this
3. Brush the bottom of a baking tin with margarine or ghee, and decorate with halved almonds (optional, as you can see from the photo my almonds 'drifted' slightly during cooking!)

4. Take around half of the pastry and press it into a loose bottomed baking tin (these quantities are enough to fill a 20cm sandwich tin) make sure it’s pressed down quite firmly (I used a tin can covered in plastic wrap)
5. For the filling I used ricotta, traditionally knafeh is made from Nablusi cheese, an unsalted cheese that when melted has the stringiness of mozzarella, and indeed mozzarella (soaked to remove as much of the salt as possible) is a good alternative. I mixed the ricotta with a few drops of geranium oil
6. Spoon the filling onto the pastry base, keeping it clear of the edges
7. Lightly spoon the remainder of the kataifi dough over the top of the cheese until it’s covered. You don’t need to press down too hard but make sure to press down firmly at the edges (the idea being that the pastry is going to totally encase the cheese filling)
8. Cook in a preheated oven for around 20 minutes until golden brown, my oven settings aren’t too accurate so I can’t say what the temperature was
9. While the knafeh is cooking prepare a simple sugar syrup and allow it to cool
10. Once the knafeh is cooked, pour over the syrup
Leave for a few minutes, then eat! Delicious with strained yoghurt or cream if you’re wanting something more luxurious. Also nice cold

Kubbat Halab (Iraqi style rice kibbeh stuffed with mushrooms, aubergine and chestnuts)

I have to admit, Iraqi cuisine is not something that I am too familiar with. While it shares some similarities with its neighbours, and the Middle East as a whole, with the exception of some of the food popular among the Iraqi Jewish diaspora such as amba (the ubiquitous mango and turmeric sauce found in many of Israel’s falafel and sabich shops), sabich – a pitta stuffed with fried aubergine, pickles and egg and slathered in the aforementioned amba sauce, and marak kubbeh adom or red kubbeh soup. A rich sweet, sour and spicy beetroot soup with bulgar wheat dumplings stuffed with usually meat, but sometimes a vegetarian mixture my knowledge is lacking.
There are some distinctly Iraqi specialities, one of which is kubbat halab or Aleppo kubba/kibbe. While named after the Syrian city, this dish is uniquely Iraqi. Traditionally a spicy meat filling encased in a turmeric coloured rice dough and then fried until crispy. 

My version is a vegetarian adaptation, I had originally planned to stuff the kubba with a mushroom mixture, however I didn’t have enough so added some aubergine and chopped chestnuts, ultimately you could probably stuff it with whatever takes your fancy. I often make these stuffed with cheese, which while totally non-traditional are unbelievably delicious. Crispy fried rice encircling melty oozy cheesy goodness. Mmmm
The ingredients below are enough to make 4 or 5 kubbeh, size-wise mine are around the size of a tennis ball, squashed slightly. Oh, that’s another thing. Shape – Sometimes these kubbeh are the more traditional kibbeh torpedo shape, other times they are ovals or like mine squashed spheres. It’s all personal choice, though if you’re shallow frying then you probably want something with a flatter base.

Note: Recipes for kubbat halab usually call for an egg to bind the rice together, and washing the rice prior to cooking to remove some of the starch. I omitted the egg and the washing stage, figuring the starch would help the mixture stick together. It did.

Ingredients
250g long grain or basmati rice
1 tsp turmeric
Pinch of saffron threads
Salt

Stuffing
2 cloves of garlic
Mushrooms*
Aubergine*
Chestnuts* (chopped – or any type of nut)
1 tablespoon Paprika
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Allspice
2 tablespoons sultanas

*I've not given quantities, but to fill 5 kubbeh, I used 6 small mushrooms, a handful of chestnuts, and a couple of slices of grilled aubergine (all leftovers scavenged when I realised I didn't have enough mushrooms!)

1. Add the rice to boiling water with the saffron, turmeric and salt. Rather than cooking by the absorption method I boiled the rice for around 12 minutes until it was just done and then drained.
2. To make the dough, traditionally leave the rice to cool enough to be handled, and then work it between your fingers breaking up the grains until you have a rough dough to which you add 1 egg. I used an immersion blender to puree the rice. You don’t want to do this too thoroughly, I left some of the rice whole to create texture. Taste the rice dough and add more salt if you think it needs it

3. For the stuffing, chop the vegetables finely and fry until soft and then add the spices. I haven’t gone into much detail, as basically you can use whatever you want!

4. Before assembling, it helps to have a bowl of water to dip your fingers in to keep the mixture from sticking.
5. Take a good sized handful of the rice dough (around the size of a tennis ball) and then flatten on the palm of your hand, add a spoonful of the filling and then fold the dough over the filling and shape the finished kubbeh. There are quite a few different methods of doing this, and I guess you make them how you’ve seen them being prepared! Some people take a ball of the kubbeh mixture, place a finger inside and flatten out the sides creating a rice dough ‘cup’ into which the filling is placed. The dough is quite pliable so either method works just as well. Once you’ve sealed the filling in the rice ball flatten is slightly

6. To prepare, shallow fry in oil until crispy and golden brown. I also oven baked some, while you don’t get the same delicious crispy rice crust, they are still tasty and obviously a slightly reduced calorie version

7. Lovely served with amba, or harissa, or any way you fancy!

Feteer meshaltet with cheese and olives (Egyptian stuffed flaky pastry)

I had a relaxing weekend planned, and my idea of relaxation usually involves cooking of some sort. I'd had a dream a few nights previously about feteer meshaltet, I'm not sure what triggered it but I woke up with the taste in my mouth and knew I had to make it...
For those unfamiliar with the dish, feteer meshaltet is an unbelievably delicious Egyptian pastry dish, it has the crispness of filo pastry and the layering and moistness of puff pastry. Layers of super thin pastry are smothered in clarified butter and stacked and folded upon themselves, sometimes it's stuffed, savoury and pie-like and sometimes just the pastry is baked and served with a dusting of sugar and honey. I prefer the savoury version and decided to go with a filling of feta and green olives (cheese is quite a common filling, often of the processed variety... Mmmmm)
I'm not a big maker of pastry, and I did wonder whether I would be able to re-create the transparently thin layers, and had bought some ready made puff pastry as a back up should it not work. However, the pastry was actually quite straightforward to make, the trick being to knead it well, and rest to allow the elasticity to develop, so I would encourage anyone to give it a go!

Ingredients
450g plain flour
250ml water (you may need a little less)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
100g margarine or ghee (melted)

For the filling
100g feta (crumbled)
1 handful green olives (roughly chopped)
1 tsp za'atar 

1. Pour the flour, salt and sugar and slowly add the water, I've said 250ml but you may need a bit less, orpossibly more. The dough should be quite wet and sticky, but still kneadable
2. Once the dough has come together in a smooth ball, knead for 10-15 minutes, then divide the dough into four parts. Drizzle with a little of the melted margarine (or olive oil), cover and leave to rest for an hour 
3. Once the dough has rested you're ready to make the feteer. Pour some of the melted margarine on a clean work surface and start pushing the dough flat with the heel of your hand, keep the dough well oiled for this. With the kneading and resting the dough should be quite elastic and you'll find it spreads quite easily. The idea is to get it as thin as possible, if you can see your work surface through the dough then it's think enough! As an aside, if you get the occasional hole, don't worry. It's going to be folded up so the odd tear doesn't matter

4.  Add the crumbled feta, olives and za'atar to the centre of the dough circle (or square/oblong/rectangle) and fold the sides in over the filling. Once it's encased put it to one side
5. Repeat the process with the second ball of dough, this time when it's reached the desired thickness carefully pick up your filled dough parcel and place it in the middle of the circle, and fold the pastry over it 
6. And repeat again with the third and fourth balls, you'll end up with a well wrapped dough parcel

7. Bake in a preheated oven until golden brown and crispy, I can't give temperatures as my oven doesn't have a temperature gauge, but 190C for around 20 minutes seems about right!

8. Eat, and then wish you'd made more! 

Zeytinli açma (Turkish soft bread rolls filled with olives)

I don’t bake much, it’s not that I don’t enjoy bread, but the process of baking always seems to be a bit too precise. However I had been dreaming of zeytinli açma, the beautiful soft Turkish bread rolls stuffed with a tangy black olive paste. One of the first things I do as soon as I arrive in Turkey is to hunt out one of these beauties, usually easy enough as a branch of a certain world famous coffee shop in the arrivals hall stock them. I only realised I had a bit of an addiction a couple of years ago when I realised I was planning my day around where I could buy my next fix…

I’m back in turkey next month, but as I’m still trying to get to grips with the oven in my new house I decided to try my hand at some baking, and what better bread to start than with the delicious zeytinli açma. I wasn’t too precise about measuring out the ingredients, and as far as the cooking times go, my oven doesn’t have a temperature scale so I’ll have to be a bit vague with regards to timing, but the end result was extremely tasty! The quantities make 10 açma, enough to eat with a few left over to freeze for later.

Ingredients
3 cups of white flour
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup of milk
A sachet of yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
Squeeze of honey
Salt

For the filling

100 g black olives

2 tablespoons margarine (or butter)

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the milk and vegetable oil. Mix together, you should get a moist dough. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour
2. To make the olive filling, puree or finely chop the olives, and add a tablespoon of margarine or softened butter
3. Break off tangerine sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls, these quantities should make 10
4. Taking one ball of dough, roll it into a sausage shape and either squash flat, or roll flat with a rolling pin. This doesn’t have to be too precise. 

5. Take a spoonful of the olive and margarine mixture and spread on the surface of the dough. Roll up, and taking one end of the roll in each hand, twist and then form into a ring. Don’t worry if some of the filling starts to come out, this is the intended effect
6. Repeat with the remainder of the dough
7. Brush the tops of the açmas with milk or egg yolk (most recipes call for egg yolk, I had no eggs in the house) and sprinkle with sesame seeds or nigella seeds
8. Bake for around 20-30 minutes

Nevzine (Turkish walnut and tahini cake)

It seems that when I have things on my mind, or am distracted I cook. That is my coping mechanism, and as life has been rather chaotic recently (a house move, and possibly another move on the horizon) my response is to make food. I'm not really big on comfort eating, but I find the preparation of meals to be the ultimate in relaxation. I guess with cooking it is one of those things that is seen either as a pleasure or a chore. My grandmother worked as a cook for a living, and when she wasn't working she would be always found in the kitchen cooking for pleasure. My mother on the other hand, while a good cook sees food preparation to be something that has to be endured between doing far more interesting things like gardening! So the love of cooking obviously skipped a generation. 

I’ve been trying to use up odds and ends left in my store cupboards, and had some ground walnuts and half used bags of flour and a quarter of a jar of tahini. In addition I’d unearthed a jar of pekmez, that thick gooey Turkish spread made from grape must. Ingredients that spoke to me of their desire to be made into a cake. And what better way to use them up than to make nevzine, a rich and utterly delicious Turkish cake that is lovingly soaked in pekmez until it is oozingly delicious. It's very similar to basbousa or revani, though more commonly made with regular flour. I didn't have enough flour for the recipe, so substituted fine semolina. The cake may not have been quite as dense as the traditional variety, but I think the semolina gave it a nice texture. Feel free to use all flour if you prefer. I also substituted yoghurt for milk, again I don't think that the flavour or texture suffered for this addition. 

Ingredients

2 cups of flour (either regular white flour or use half semolina and half flour)

50g ground walnuts

100g melted margarine

3 tablespoons yoghurt

3 tablespoons tahini

For the syrup

Make a 1:1 sugar syrup (i.e. 100g sugar to 100ml water with a squeeze of lemon juice)

3 tablespoons pekmez

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the melted margarine and mix until you have the consistency of wet sand. Then stir in the yoghurt and tahini. The dough should be thick batter-like consistency

2. Spoon it into an oven proof dish. Smooth down the surface and cut it into squares, placing a walnut half in the middle of each portion

3. Cook for around 40 minutes, a little bit vague, but my oven doesn't have set temperatures and my method is to light the fire, put in whatever I’m baking and then check it after 30 minutes! It's a method that seems to work (I'm guessing you should heat it to around 175C if you have an oven with settings). You want the cake to be firm and the top lightly golden

4. While the cake is cooking make the sugar/pekmez syrup and leave to cool

5. Once the cake is cooked, reinforce the score marks, and then pour over the syrup until all the cake is covered. Allow to cool and ideally refrigerate overnight so the syrup can completely soak in

The cake is delicious with coffee, and if it needs any further accompaniment a spoonful of ice cream or strained yoghurt complements it beautifully!

Kakaolu muhallebi (Turkish style chocolate milk dessert)

Of all the varieties of muhallebi available, kakaolu muhallebi (cocoa / chocolate muhallebi) is probably one of my favourites. Because after all, who doesn’t love chocolate?!

The recipe couldn’t be any simpler, and the whole process takes maybe 10 minutes maximum, you do need to give it a few hours (or ideally overnight) to cool and set, but apart from that, it’s something that can be knocked up at a moments notice. The amounts of ingredients are an estimation, when I made this I prepared it by eye, using enough milk to fill the size of containers I had plus a little extra. Add more or less sugar depending on your personal taste, I wanted the dessert to be a little bittersweet...

Ingredients

500ml milk

50g sugar

3 heaped tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

3 heaped tablespoons cornflour

Dash of orange blossom/rose water (optional)

1. Add the milk (reserving a little) to a pan with the sugar and bring to the boil

2. Mix the reserved milk and the cornflour, stir well until you have a smooth paste

3. To the cocoa powder add some boiling water and mix until smooth, then add this to the cornflour mixture

4. By now the milk will probably be boiling, to create silky smooth muhallebi you need to take care when pouring in the cornflour mixture as it will start to thicken immediately*. I whisk the milk using a hand whisk and slowly pour in the cornflour, whisking all the time. Once it’s all incorporated lower the heat and cook the muhallebi for another minute or so and then take off the heat. Now add the orange blossom or rose water (if using)

5. Pour into small containers and allow to cool, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours (or overnight)

6. Eat!

*As an aside, if you are distracted and horror of horrors your wonderfully silky smooth muhallebi turns into a lumpy fright, all is not lost. Using a hand blender will remove the lumps and no one need ever know

Aubergine, halloumi and sweet pepper stacks

I’ll come right out and admit it, I have an inability to follow recipes. Whether it's down to impatience or a touch of kitchen-related ADHD I have no idea. When I cook it’s usually based on something I am familiar with, or something I have eaten and want to try to recreate, or maybe I’ve found some ingredients in the kitchen cupboard and wonder how they'll go together (as an aside, in my student days out of desperation I made a pizza topped with harissa, sweetcorn, cheese triangles and peanuts as I had nothing else in the house. It was edible but not one of my finest moments…). To me it seems an anathema to read a book and follow directions. Having said that, I do own an extensive library of cookery books, and there's no better way to spend a cold rainy afternoon than curled up on the sofa with a book pouring over the recipes. Or indeed sitting in the shade on a sunny day, book on lap. But follow a recipe? It’s not that I think I can improve on the original, more that I end up fine tuning it to my own taste. The recipe calls for walnuts? Eh… I’ll use that quarter bag of chopped hazelnuts languishing in the back of the cupboard. Everything’s fried? I wonder whether I could bake it… The end result is probably more ‘inspired’ by the original than a facsimile. For that reason I never took to conventional baking, if I’m given precise quantities to measure out then I lose interest. I function much better with vague instructions such as “half a packet of this and a few handfuls of that…”

My current cook book obsession is the Comptoir Libanais Express book that I picked up last time I was in London, an instant favourite for the food and also for the glorious photographs and graphics. And that leads me on to the aubergine stacks, I love aubergines. They are probably one of my favourite vegetables, and I love tomatoes as well, however decent flavoured large tomatoes are pretty much scarce at this time of year (at least in my local stores) and if you do find anything larger than a cherry tomato then it’ll taste of nothing and be as tough as old boots. However sweet peppers are abundant and always tasty especially when oven roasted de-skinned and tossed in a balsamic vinegar and herby marinade overnight, and so the recipe metamorphoses…

This recipe is very much a 'prepare the bits and pieces ahead' type of affair, and other than the initial grilling of the aubergines, halloumi and peppers the actual preparation takes minutes. The original recipe (which can be found here) showcases the vegetables in their natural form, I had some leftover muhammara in the fridge and decided to spread that on the aubergine slices as I stacked them up, acting as a flavoured adhesive. The quantities below make 4 stacks (with some leftover halloumi to nibble on...)

Ingredients

1 large aubergine

2 red sweet peppers

1 block of halloumi

3 tablespoons of muhammara (optional)

1 bunch of coriander

A few sprigs of tarragon (optional, but gives a nice aniseedy twang to the sauce)

1 tablespoon of zaatar

Olive oil

Lemon juice 

Salt to taste

1. Cut the aubergines into rounds, brush with olive oil and gril until soft. 

2. Cut the sweet peppers into large wedges and roast in the oven until the skin starts to blacken, allow to cool and then remove the skins. Ideally this should be done the day before, I tossed the skinned peppers in a bag with some dried mixed herbs, olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar

3. Slice three quarters of the halloumi and grill until golden brown. Grate the remaining halloumi, the Comptoir Libanais recipe suggests rinsing to remove some of the salt, however I tasted the cheese I had and it wasn't particulary salty. As I wasn't adding any seasoning to the aubergines I decided to omit the rinsing step

4. Preheat the oven to 200C, while the oven is heating prepare the aubergine stacks using 3 aubergine slices per stack. Place an aubergine slice on a baking tray, top with some of the muhammara (if using) then a piece of red pepper. Add another aubergine slice, some more muhammara and then top with the grilled halloumi. Finally place the remaining aubergine slice on top and sprinkle over a little of the grated halloumi

5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until sizzling

6. While the aubergine stacks are baking prepare the zaatar sauce. In a blender add the coriander, tarragon, zaatar, lemon juice and a glug of olive oil. Blend and adjust seasoning to your taste 

6. Drizzle some of the sauce on top of the stacks and eat!

Date maamouls

It's always fun to play with new kitchen toys, and my beautiful hand carved maamoul mould is my newest. I already posted a recipe for the pistachio filled maamouls a couple of weeks ago, this time I'm going for the other main traditional filling - dates. Nature's chocolate... the desert's candy... simply divine... 

I used medjool dates to make the filling here, lucious plump beauties. If you can't get a hold of them and are using standard dried dates, soak them for a bit longer in the rose water, overnight if possible so they soak up all that goodness. If all you can find in your supermarket is the so-called 'ready to eat' dates then frankly I wouldn't bother! I am not sure what they do to them, but whatever it is seems to render them useless for cooking.

Ingredients
300g semolina
100g white flour
150g margarine / ghee
50g caster sugar
1/4 tsp ground mastic (optional)
1/4 tsp mahleb (optional)
1/4 tsp yeast
100ml orange blossom or rose water 

For the date filling
8 medjool dates
Pinch of cinnamon
Orange blossom water

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, melt the margarine or ghee and pour in, along with the orange blossom or rose water. Mix together until it comes together in a large dough ball. Cover with plastic wrap and leave for around 4 hours. I should point out, in that time nothing particularly magical happens, it doesn't transform in size, the waiting period is more to allow the semolina to absorb the fat
2. While the dough is resting, blitz the dates in a blender, with the cinnamon and orange blossom water. You want a fairly thick textured paste
3. Pinch golf ball sized (or walnut, depending on your frame of reference) pieces of the dough and roll into balls. With this quantity you should have enough to make around 20 (ish) maamouls
4. Take a ball into one hand and flatten out with the heel of your other hand. Pinch off a teaspoonful of the date paste and roll into a ball. Place this in the middle of the flattened dough circle and close the dough around it to encase fully
5. At this point squish it in your maamoul mould, traditionally the oval ones are used for nut fillings, and the round for date. If you don't have a mould then you can decorate a pattern on the top with a fork
6. Arrange the maamouls on a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper and bake in an oven preheated to ~190C for 15-20minutes. You want the bottom golden, but the top to be lightly coloured
7. Cool, and dust with icing sugar to serve

Mushroom and chestnut kibbeh

I already wrote a little about kibbeh/kubbe before, those delicious morsels consisting (usually) of a bulgar wheat shell encasing a filling, and then fried until crisp or cooked in a soup. Sometimes, as in the case of tray kibbeh it is based with the filling sandwiched between the bulgar wheat.
I found a box of chestnuts that I had bought some time before and then promptly forgotten about (actually, more correctly they got buried under a million cans of chick peas and shoved to the back of the cupboard). After a clean out I decided that I needed to use them, and I knew exactly what to make. Mushroom and chestnut kibbeh.

While it is not a traditional kibbeh filling, it is a combination that works wonderfully well together. I can't take credit for the idea though, as I first tasted them at the Arabica deli counter in Selfridges... Pricey, but oh so delicious.

Ingredients
200g bulgar wheat
100g semolina
2 tablespoons flour
1 tsp salt

For the filling
2 large portobello mushrooms
200g chestnuts
3 cloves of garlic (crushed)
Olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp oregano
A splodge of harissa (optional)

1. Put the bulgar wheat in a bowl and cover with boiling water. You want it to be completely covered and leave to soak for 30-60 minutes
2. While the bulgar is soaking prepare the filling. Chop the mushrooms and fry in olive oil with the spices until softened, then stir in the chestnuts and cook for a few more minutes. Turn the heat up high and cook briefly until all the excess water from the mushrooms has evaporated. Tip onto a plate and let it cool
3. After the bulgar wheat has soaked, drain and squeeze out the excess water (a clean kitchen cloth is ideal for this). I couldn't get a hold of any fine bulgar wheat, so I mushed it up between my fingers to try and break down the grains at this point. Tastewise it makes not one bit of difference, but the fine bulgar does make for a slightly neater and prettier kubbeh
4. Mix in the semolina, flour and salt
5. Knead the dough for a few minutes, you'll notice that the dough tends to crack or crumble as it dries. Keep a bowl of water beside you as you work to dip your fingers in as you make the kibbeh shells
6. Take a lump of the dough (what size? Hmm... kibbeh size, bit bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball!) and roll it into a ball. Placing your thumb in the centre of the ball squeeze the sides out so as to make a cup-shaped receptacle for the filling. If the dough starts to crack or split dip your hands into water to moisten it. Question: how thin should your kibbeh walls be? Answer: as thin as possible! 
7. Add a spoonful (or as much as you reckon will fit) of the filling and gently pinch the sides together. If it looks like there will be some leakage, just pinch off some more dough to patch it up. Wet your fingers and roll into an oval shape (traditionally the ends are pinched so it's more of a torpedo shape)
8. Continue until you run out of either dough or filling. This amount should make around 10 kibbeh. As an aside, if you have any excess filling it is delicious spread on toast. If you don't want to cook all of the kibbeh you can also freeze them at this point
9. Now to cook. You kibbeh afficionados may have noticed my kibbeh look a bit weird. That is because I decided to bake them rather than the more traditional deep frying. How you cook them is up to personal preference. Mine were baked at around 200C for 30 minutes until crispy. If you were so inclined you could also drop them into a soup and simmer for 30 minutes. It's all good!

Pistachio maamouls

I don't need much of an excuse to cook up a batch of maamouls as they are probably one of my favourite cookies to make. However, if I did need an excuse I found the perfect one in London last weekend - a maamoul mould. My granny used to have a few but along with her kitchen axe and massive cauldron they went AWOL after she died. This maamoul mould I bought from the rather fabulous Persepolis in Peckham. Well worth a detour to if you are hankering after all things Iranian (and generally Middle Eastern and scrumptious). 
A small note on a couple of the optional ingredients: mastic is a resin from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus), it's used in quite a lot of Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean sweets and desserts and lends a pine-y flavour to the finished dish. Mahlab is a spice made from the seeds of a particular species of cherry (Prunus mahaleb) and gives an almondy/cherry flavour to the dish. 

Ingredients
300g semolina
100g white flour
150g margarine / ghee
50g caster sugar
1/4 tsp ground mastic (optional)
1/4 tsp mahleb (optional)
1/4 tsp yeast
100ml orange blossom or rose water 

For the pistachio filling
100g pistachios
Sugar (to taste)
Orange blossom water

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, melt the margarine or ghee and pour in, along with the orange blossom or rose water. Mix together until it comes together in a large dough ball. Cover with plastic wrap and leave for around 4 hours. I should point out, in that time nothing particularly magical happens, it doesn't transform in size, the waiting period is more to allow the semolina to absorb the fat
2. While the dough is resting, blitz the pistachios in a blender and add sugar to taste and then the flower water until you have a fairly tough marzipan-ish paste
3. Pinch golf ball sized (or walnut, depending on your frame of reference) pieces of the dough and roll into balls. With this quantity you should have enough to make around 20 (ish) maamouls
4. Take a ball into one hand and flatten out with the heel of your other hand. Pinch off a teaspoonful of the pistachio paste and roll into a sausage. Place this in the middle of the flattened dough circle and close the dough around it to encase fully
5. At this point squish it in your maamoul mould, traditionally the oval ones are used for nut fillings, and the round for date. If you don't have a mould then you can decorate a pattern on the top with a fork
6. Arrange the maamouls on a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper and bake in an oven preheated to ~190C for 15-20minutes. You want the bottom golden, but the top to be lightly coloured
7. Cool, and dust with icing sugar to serve (or alternatively leave for 5 minutes and eat while hot... Mmmm)

Date halwa

I was on a halwa making roll this weekend, and as I had some half empty bags of dates and figs I decided to make up another batch of halwa. A super easy recipe that is rather tasty, and a good way to use up those half empty random bags of dried fruit at the back of the kitchen cupboards...

Ingredients
110g chickpea flour
250g dried dates and/or figs
4 tablespoons rose water
100g margarine (melted)
200ml milk
100g sugar
50g chopped mixed nuts
Desiccated coconut (to decorate)

1. Cut the fruit into small pieces, put into a container and pour in a little boiling water to just cover them. Leave overnight (or a few hours) to soak and then puree
2. Dry roast the chickpea flour for around 5 minutes in a heavy bottomed pan until it loses its 'raw' smell, then tip into another container
3. Add the fig/date puree, chopped nuts, sugar, milk and rose water to the pan and slowly heat, adding around half of the melted margarine
4. Sift in the chickpea flour and stir well
5. Bring the mixture to the boil and then turn the heat down, stirring constantly
6. Now add the rest of the margarine
7. Keep on stirring until the mixture starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, this takes around 10-15 minutes
8. Pour into a container lined with cling film. Decorate with some desiccated coconut  (optional)
9. Leave to cool and then cut into pieces

Mlabes (North African iced cookies)

Despite recent posts to the contrary I'm not big on sweets, preferring savoury any day. However, I've currently got a bit of an obsession with making North African sweets and cakes, partly prompted by the gorgeous patisseries I was window shopping in when I visited Paris last November, and partly due to boredom. I hate the winter, I hate the cold and I hate the rain. For the past few weekends the weather has been dire and the incentive to go out and 'do' something has been sadly lacking. Add to the mix a Winter lurg and you’ve got a recipe for staying at home.

Mlabes are a Tunisian and Algerian delicacy, beautifully iced almond biscuits that melt in the mouth. I searched high and low for a fool proof recipe, but the majority I found online seemed to be based on the same original recipe, one that had at some point been translated from Arabic, in itself not a problem, but no one seemed to know what one of the mystery ingredients was (kthira*) so omitted it. All the recipes did contain egg whites, and as I'm not overly fond of using eggs if I can get away with it I decided to play around with the ingredients a bit. Using margarine as a binding agent seemed to work acceptably, admittedly my cookies are probably a bit 'heavier' than they should be, but I like the texture. I also substituted half ground pistachios for the almonds.
I should point out that any weights listed below are an approximation only; I didn't weigh anything out while I was making the cookies, and adjusted the ingredients depending on the texture. You want the dough to hold together and be quite malleable, so adjust the ground almonds / margarine accordingly.
For the icing, I used an all-in-one royal icing mix (icing sugar and powdered egg white), and added a little more water than the directions on the packet stated so I could dip the cookies in.

Ingredients
200g ground almonds (or 2/3 almonds 1/3 ground pistachios)
50g sugar
2 tablespoons rose water (or orange flower water)
50g margarine (melted)

1. Mix the ground almonds and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in the rose water.
2. Add the melted margarine slowly, you should have a slightly oily malleable dough. If it's too crumbly add more margarine, too loose then add some more almonds.
3. Pinch off small pieces of the dough and roll into balls slightly smaller than golf ball size
4. Arrange on an oiled baking tray and bake at 175C for 20 minutes
5. Allow the cookies to cool completely before icing them
 
Icing
1. Prepare the icing according to the packet (or Google a recipe for royal icing if you want to make your own with egg whites!) you may need to add a little more water, the icing should be thick enough to coat the cookies without slipping off, but not so think that you’ve got to trowel it on! You can either leave the icing plain, or flavour it. I made half with plain icing, and added some violet essence and mauve food colouring to the other half
2. Dip the cookies fully into icing and place on a rack to dry
3. Traditionally they are topped with a diamond of gold or silver leaf, I used a combination of edible gold glitter, bronze sprinkles, and gold stars. To go with the violet ones ideally I would have topped them with a crystallised violet petal…
4. Step back and admire your finished work. Sure they are a little wonky and the icing may not be great, but for a first attempt they are not bad at all

 *Best guess for kthira is that it is a gum or a resin similar to mastic or gum arabic...

Basbousa (semolina cake) with orange blossom syrup

I'm not a big baker of cakes, in fact I rarely attempt to bake anything, preferring instead to make savoury foods. Well, with the exception of Middle Eastern sweets. Basbousa (also known as hareesa, revani or ravani) lies somewhere in between a sweet and a cake. It's found thoughout North Africa and the Middle East, and also in Greece and Turkey, though its actual origins are probably Egyptian. 
There are numerous recipies out there for basbousa, some using self raising flour in addition to semolina, some using eggs, some yoghurt, and some milk. I've gone for the yoghurt version as I think the tanginess of the yoghurt contrasts beautifully with the sweetness of the syrup. And about the syrup, some versions have a rose water syrup whereas others call for a plain simple syrup. 
Don't worry about being too precise with the ingredients, like just about everything I make it doesn't call for exact measurements. Same with the cooking time, depending on the size of dish, efficiency of the oven and the phase of the moon it could take anything from 30 minutes to an hour :)

Ingredients
350g semolina
50g dessicated coconut
100g caster sugar
Vanilla extract (optional)
150g margarine (melted)
200g Greek yoghurt
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
Blanched almonds (to decorate)
For the syrup
250ml water
225g sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

1. Mix the semolina, baking powder, coconut, sugar and salt in a bowl
2. Stir in the melted butter, the mixture should look like damp sand
3. Add the yoghurt and vanilla extract (if using) and mix well. You should end up with a thick batter-like dough
4. Grease a baking dish (~ 27cm/10 inch) and spoon in the mixture. Smooth down and leave for around 20 minutes (Use this time to make the syrup and let the oven heat up...)
5. To make the syrup add the water and sugar to a pan and bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice (this will stop the syrup crystalising when it cools) and then add the orange blossom water. Leave to one side
6. Score the top of the cake mixture into lozenge shapes, and then put into a preheated oven (175C) for 20 minutes

 7. It's not ready yet, you just want to reinforce the scoring, and if you're using almonds to decorate press them into the centre of each lozenge at this point (if you do it right at the start they tend to burn)
8. Put the cake back in the oven and cook for another 20-40 minutes. You want the top to be golden brown, as the cake is so moist cooking it for longer wont dry it out. Just keep checking on it!

9. Once the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven and pour on the sugar syrup. You may not need all the syrup (in fact you probably wont! Keep some aside to drizzle on the leftover yoghurt and top with dessicated coconut and chopped pistachios... delicious). Once it's drunk enough of the syrup it's ready to eat. Basbousa can either be eaten warm or cold.

Ghriba (Moroccan pistachio and chickpea flour cookies)

When I was in Paris last November I found myself perusing the window displays of the many North African bakeries, entranced by the delicious looking offerings on sale. Particularly the makrouth and montecao (a shortbread type cookie). It was when I was making a batch of montecao the other weekend that I decided to use half the dough to make some ghriba - a cookie of many shapes and forms found over North Africa. I had an awful lot of pistachios in the cupboard, so decided that my cookies would be pistachio based. Incidentally 'ghriba' in Arabic means strange or foreign, indicating possibly that these cookies come from elsewhere. They are popular among the North African Jewish communities so it is possible that they arrived via Spain...

A note about chickpea flour, uncooked it has a beany flavour with a slightly bitter aftertaste however once cooked it gives the cookies a delicious creamy texture with no flavour. As with most of my recipes, quantities are approximate and nothing particulary bad should happen if you use a little more or less...

Ingredients
1 cup chick pea flour
100g blanched ground pistachios
1/2 cup sugar
50g margarine
Pinch of salt
4 cardamom pods (remove seeds and grind)
Natural green food colouring (optional)

1. If you can’t buy ready blanched peeled pistachios (can anyone?), boil for a few minutes and then plunge into cold water. Remove the skins (an easy way is to put your hands in the water and rub the pistachios between your fingers, the skins should sink to the bottom of the bowl), and once de-skinned blend to a paste. It doesn’t have to be too smooth.
2. Add the chickpea flour to a bowl and mix with the sugar and ground cardamom seeds.
3. Stir in the ground pistachios, it doesn’t matter if the resulting mixture is a little lumpy
4. Melt the margarine, and slowly add to the dry ingredients (along with green food colouring if using).  This is one of those recipes that doesn’t hinge on exact amounts, if your ground pistachios are more of a paste than a powder then you’re likely to need less margarine. You want the dough to form a fairly tight ball with minimal crumbliness. Chickpea flour contains no gluten so you need something to help it stick together
5. Pinch off small pieces of dough (slightly smaller than golf ball size, I tried to think up a suitable comparison object but drew a blank… ) roll into balls and place on a baking tray
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes in a 175C oven, the cookies will initially be quite soft so leave on the baking tray until cooled. While they are still soft you can decorate them with slithers of almonds, pine nuts or pistachios.
7. Eat, perfect with coffee or mint tea if you are so inclined…

Makrouth (North African date and semolina cookies)

Despite appearances to the contrary, I don't actually have a sweet tooth. I do however have a weakness for Middle Eastern and North African sweets and pastries... Concentrated sweetness that goes perfectly with a cup of strong black coffee, maybe at the end of a meal, or maybe during a lazy afternoon. The sort of sweetness that caresses the throat and excites the taste buds. I was preparing a batch of maamouls at the weekend, and decided as I had an awful lot of semolina left, I'd try my hand at making makrouth (or makrout, makroud, makgrood depending on how the name's transliterated) a North African semolina pastry filled with dates. Traditionally fried and then soaked in a hot honey mixture, they are beyond delicious. I have to say, I went down a non-traditional route as far as the cooking process goes and baked them, but the end result seemed to be quite acceptible. 

Ingredients
380g semolina
200g margarine (melted)
150ml orange flower water
1 pinch of salt 

For the filling:
250g dates
1 tsp cinnamon
Orange flower water

1. Chop the dates roughly and add around 50-100ml of boiling water to them (the amount of water will depend on how soft your dates are. I love the really dense fudge-like dates but in the UK they are getting harder and harder to find in supermarkets as the pre-soaked ready-to-eat ones seem more in favour. Nice but they don't work as well in cooking. Leave the dates to soak for at least an hour (ideally overnight)
2. Put the semolina and a pinch of salt in a large bowl and pour in the melted margarine and the orange flower water. Mix the margarine into the dry semolina with your fingers until you have what resembles a bowl of damp sand. You don't want to overwork the dough, so there's no need to knead it, but slowly work it together until you have a firm ball. Wrap in cling film and leave for around 30 minutes (while you make the date filling)
3. Pour any excess water from the dates and blend until they become a smooth paste. Stir in the cinnamon and orange flower water. I haven't given quantities for the orange flower water because it all depends on how moist your date paste is. Ideally, you want something that you can form into a sausage shape.
4. Dividing the date mixture into four, roll into 'sausages'
5. Now divide the semolina dough into four pieces and roll out into a log, flattening slightly. It should be the same length as the date sausages
6. Make an indentation in the dough and add the date filling (hot dog in a bun analogy...)
7. Carefully pinch the sides together so the filling is completely encased in the dough, then roll it backwards and forwards to make sure it's all sealed in
8. Usually at this stage special moulds are used, however if you don't have a mould (I don't) just cut the log diagonally into 2cm wide pieces. If you're feeling adventurous you can decorate the top with a pattern
9. Bake the cookies in an oven preheated to 250C for around 20 minutes,or until they just start to brown
10. Once cooked, you can eat 'as is' or go for the dipped in honey option. I made a simple sugar syrup and added a good squeeze of honey and some orange flower water. I then poured the mixture over the cookies and let them soak for around 30 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of sesame seeds.