Arabic Food and Sumac:)

Middle Eastern food is something that is always fun, interesting and even a little difficult to put together. Tonight I decided to make Kefta (or Kafta), but it's a different version than what I made before. This recipe is more like a roll, with some filling inside that is already pre-cooked and the meat of the Kefta (both lamb and beef) cook altogether on very high in the oven.

This dish in all took about an hour in a half to cook. Like most Middle Eastern dished I've tried to concoct in the past, I notice a recurring pattern- there are a lot of steps, and or, each step is a process in a itself as well. I wouldn't say I'm always on the mood to cook a 'fancy' dish like this one tonight, however, when I am and when I do attempt to recreate the recipe, I always feel rewarded and good that I got a bit or even a lot out of my comfort zone and tried something different, and even fun. I usually am surprised at the strong flavors and smells from the exotic spices. Sumac, being one of these spices that is particularly strong. I've come across a few times now in dishes, yet never had it and didn't know what it was. My Mom recently purchased sumac at a cooking store, that was actually surprisingly cheaper and bigger than a grocery store. So now, I'm happy to say that I have sumac in my back pocket whenever I need it!

The end result looked something like a hamburger patty, but it tasted a little spicy with the help of the sumac, and a mix of lamb and beef. I happen to like the mix of lamb and beef, as well as just lamb by itself, but my sister begs to differ. I somehow always seem to be cooking recipes with lamb ?;)
I feel that this too will go in my recipe archive. Now the next thing I need to get a hold of is Tahini paste- which many recipes have also called for that I've seemed to notice and haven't included, yet.

Hope you'll give this one a try!: Till next time...

6 o'clock Lamb

I haven't been cooking too regularly but I didn't post an amazing recipe which I cooked when my sister and brother-in-law were here two weekends ago. I think I was just taking in the moment and too busy prepping things and making sure nothing burns, although I did burn myself a little. That recipe I will just have to put on here anyway, since I feel that it was a keeper. It was a salmon dish, although the original was with trout, but I guess now you know that I like to switch some ingredients around. Ha

This latest recipe was from my Jerusalem cookbook. It usually doesn't take me too long in order to find a recipe that I would like to concoct. So this time I made lamb, with eggs, and other spices and such that made the dish worth what it is. I didn't however, and perhaps even unfortunately use tahini or harissa paste, or sumac. When you're not living in an Arab country, somethings may be a little harder to find. But I still found this recipe to be really good and interesting, with all the flavors in unison. My family who tried it said the same:)

With this one, there were a good number of steps that I had to pay attention to. But luckily nothing was too crazy or should I say even very difficult. I seriously started making this dish at 6 pm and had it ready a little after 7:30 pm. Sundays, (which was the day I cooked it) can always be a bit hard. I love Sundays, and I love going to the library on Sundays up until the late afternoon. My Mom and I kept telling ourselves that we would leave the library to go to store at a descent time, yet we kept pushing it back at least 3 times. We were thoroughly engrossed in our reading and work, and the quiet, glowing ambiance of the library was another factor. After finding all that I would need at the store, except for those three ingredients I mentioned earlier, I was ready to start cooking, and cooking fast, for my Dad highly dislikes eating 'late' on a Sunday evening, but fortunately everything seemed to unravel nicely and there were no big hiccups in the process.

Eggs, lamb, and all other ingredients cooking swiftly

Add the cooked tomatoes, and the eggs are supposed to be a bit runny

Here's the cover of the cookbook again, as well as the same recipe:)

My sister isn't too fond of lamb, but I guess I surprised her with this one because she liked it better than before. I personally like the smell of ground lamb cooking, and with the ingredients in this recipe, it worked well with the lamb, and the eggs, tomatoes and everything else. I look forward to the other recipes I will try in this gem!

Holy Mackerel

I was so excited to cook something out of my new and inspiring cookbook. Flipping through the pages and learning about new dishes is always fun. This time, I decided to cook a recipe with fish in it. I'm not a huge seafood lover, then again I haven't tried most seafood, so maybe it's too early to tell. However, I do want to try more seafood that I haven't already checked off my list of scary looking, funny smelling and popular treats, some call that can easily be popped in your mouth. Hmm, sounds enticing.

This recipe in particular was something different and required mackerel. I do not know a whole lot about fish, or mackerel but something new is always exciting to try, right?:) I went on board to go to the grocery store with my Mom...(this is a goal of mine, to become more familiar with the grocery store) And if you're going to cook or bake, you kinda need to know where things are.

When I saw this tree a few weeks ago, I was like holy mackerel! Love this color. Now it's all bare:/

We had to ask the 'fish guy' who works in the seafood section if they carry mackerel. The first thing he said was holy mackerel, and the next thing he said was that no, they didn't carry it. He asked what I was making, and I told him a Jerusalem dish, and I could tell that his mouth began to water, yet I couldn't tell him the name of the dish- but now I can tell you! Pan fried mackerel with golden beet and orange salsa. Instead of getting mackerel and probably searching for a while at an Asian or specialty market, we went for sardines. They also didn't carry golden beets, only the red kind, we went for the red.

Making the salsa

I was unfamiliar with beets until now. They do tend to stain your hands and anything else they touch a little, but I thin it would be cool to use them for dying a t-shirt or something. In the end, the sardines worked out well, and were pretty oily, similar to the consistency of mackerel. I really, really liked making this dish and enjoyed even more eating it. There was so much flavor, and the salty, tender sardines with the sweet and sour tang of the fruit in the salsa was a delight.

Maybe now after cooking this dish, I will become more eager and perhaps more ambitious to cook up more fish /seafood recipes. Note, my big brother got me this cookbook for Christmas, and he's vegetarian so I think it's a win win and now I finally have a vegetarian dish under my belt:)

Sardines!