A Foray into Middle Eastern Cuisine

As mentioned in my last post, I had the pleasure of travelling to the UAE at the end of last year. Not in transit, but as an actual destination. I also visited Oman briefly. The food from the area is not a cuisine I am used to and it took some getting used. They use an awfully large amount of parsley in their dishes. I really don't like lots of parsley unless it has been augmented by a mountain of garlic. Some of the less enthusiastically be-parsley-ed food did grow on me. I love Baba Ganoush. Probably because I love brinjal and garlic, which are the main components. Breads in fresh salads is such a very neat idea. The flavours just get absorbed right in there. I also happened to have sumac. Which is why I made Fattoush using pan toasted pieces of pita. It would have been an affront to the the entire cuisine if I did not make Hummus. It is not my favourite dip when we have it at restaurants, but the beauty of making it at home is that you can make it the way you prefer. I used so much garlic and lemon juice. It would have been too heavy for me otherwise. I'm sure the tahini can be bought, but it is so easy to make I don't understand the point.

Baba Ganoush
This recipe is very imprecise and I apologise for that. I consulted various recipes and then just decided to wing it. Without a pen and paper. It tasted lovely, but the replication may be difficult.

3 Brinjal
3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
1 tblsp (approx.) Tahini
Lemon juice to taste
Salt

Set your oven to as high as it can go. For my oven, this is on grill and set at level 9. Rub some olive oil onto the brinjal and poke some holes in them with a fork if you're super paranoid like me. Put the brinjal in the oven and let them know the fires of hell, turning frequently. Try not to get crapped on by house mates. Check the tenderness of the brinjal to test if they're done. I used a skewer and I wanted no resistance. Peel them and extract the innards. I used a pestel and mortar, although I have heard of this contraption called a food processor and deem it a suitable alternative. Mash the garlic with the salt until it is homogenous. Add the brinjal innards and pound them until it becomes more pasty than stringy. Mix in the tahini and lemon juice and then gradually add in the olive oil mixing well after every micro addition.

Fattoush

1/2  an iceberg lettuce, shredded
2 sliced mediterranean cucumbers
1 sliced red onion
1 diced tomato
1/2 green pepper, diced
A small bunch of flat-leaf parley, chopped
A small bunch of mint, chopped
1/2 teaspoon of sumac
pan-toasted pieces of pita

60ml lemon juice
60ml olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
salt
Freshly cracked black pepper

Combine the lettuce, cucumber, onion, tomato, pepper, herbs and sumac in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whish together the lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt and pepper to make the dressing. Just before serving add the pieces of pita and  the dressing to the other salad ingredients and toss in an overly dramatic fashion.

Hummus

400g can of chickpeas in water
2 cloves garlic
1 tblsp (or more, to taste) tahini
lemon juice, to taste
olive oil
1/4 tsp cumin
salt
Freshly cracked black pepper

Mash up the garlic with some salt until it forms a paste. Then add the chickpeas and give it the same treatment. Mix in the tahini, lemon juice and cumin. The slowly add the olive oil mixing well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

A Touch of Exoticism

I'm not sure that "exoticism" is a word, but I shall use it anyway. The confection you see above is a pistachio, rose and strawberry macaron. A French classic imbued with flavours reminiscent of the middle east, or the mediterranean (depending on who you're talking to). 

I may come off a little bit macaron obsessed given that most of my posts have been on the subject, but to be perfectly honest the true reason for this is that macarons are so photogenic that I'm instantly reminded to get my camera. This is not the case with all the food I make. Bread pudding and mousse may be sexier desserts, but they don't scream "shoot me!" (in a purely photographical sense).

The pistachios for this beauty were purchased in Oman on my brief visit there at the beginning of this year. Together with rose-perfumed ermine frosting, the flavour of the desert just sings through it. Rose and pistachio is such a classic middle eastern combination; a no-brainer really. I prefer my macarons to be offset with a tart fruit. It's unbearable sweet for me otherwise. Strawberry has such a strong fragrance by itself, but I feel that it complements the rose beautifully.

I used my normal recipe for macarons which you'll find here, but I swop half of the ground almonds with ground pistachios and I add a touch of green food colouring. The recipe for the rose-scented ermine frosting you'll find below.

Rose-scented Ermine Frosting

125ml milk

4tsp cake flour

110g butter, softened

125ml caster sugar

1tsp rose water

Mix the flour with a few spoonfuls of the milk until completely dissolved. Add this mixture to the rest of the milk in a saucepan. Cook the mixture on a medium heat until the milk thickens. Transfer to a different container and seal the mixture with cling film. Full on surface contact. We don't want a skin to form.

When the "roux" has cooled down, beat the butter and the sugar in a separate bowl until pale and fluffy. Pour in the rose water. Start adding the roux a tablespoonful at a time while continuing to beat the mixture. Continue this process until the mixture is silky with a texture lighter than butter icing, but denser than cream.

Macaron Party

It is not entirely a secret that I love baking and I have made macarons for some of the parties I've been invited to. So it wasn't really surprising when one of my university friends asked if I would teach her how to make macarons. I had never before taken the time to teach someone to bake, so I readily agreed and invited her over to my kitchen. Then another class mate overheard and said that she would also love to learn how to make them. I invited her too. In discussing the process and logistics, another friend overheard. The third person was critical mass for me and so I invited all the girls in the Masters maths class to join in on a Macaron Party, as well as a few other friends. 

Music from Phantom of the Opera playing in the background, we set to work making a macaron feast. We made raspberry, pistachio, chocolate and lemon. There are bowls of white and dark chocolate ganache, along with the bowls of almond and egg white, featured in the picture above. We also made lemon curd for the lemon macarons. The recipe for macarons that we made can be found in my Halloween Macarons post. It took the whole of the morning and most of the afternoon with a brief recess for a simple lunch of Spaghetti Pomodoro and another for an oven malfunction. 

It was a fantastic bonding experience and fast-tracked that awkward getting to know each other phase that new class mates would ordinarily have to go through. While I don't necessarily think any of them will attempt the recipe at home, at least they will be a little more appreciative of the magnitude of the effort it takes the next time they eat a macaron. 

My First Wedding Cake

After a long, drowsy 9 hour flight home from Dubai, a very creased, sleep deprived Salma stumbled through customs etc. with, what felt like, a toddler weight backpack hanging from my shoulders. I nearly lost a toe removing my 28kg (right on the money, baby) suitcase from the baggage carousel. My vacation in Dubai had been with my family, but my trip home was completely solo. Why, you ask? Because 5 days later my cousin would be getting married. Just enough time, I think, to recover and then shop for, bake and decorate a 3-tier wedding cake. With hindsight I can now tell you, just barely enough time.

I arrived on the 2nd of January and allocated that day for rest. The next day was for shopping, but, for some reason, certain baking supply shops believed that they were allowed to be closed. No matter, there are other baking supply shops, but a lot of time and petrol was spent driving around from shop to shop. Baking finally commenced the following day with the bottom tier of the cake. A 35cm diameter date and walnut cake, which is a particular favourite of my family. I've never been a fan of fruit cake and I know most people don't like it, but it is dense, which makes it ideal for wedding cakes. Date and walnut cake is denser than most cakes and buttery. The dates become a bit like toffee after baking in the oven and the walnuts have a lovely toasty flavour, rich and nutty. It took forever to bake and I had to carefully, but quickly slip a round of baking paper on top of the cake to prevent it from burning in my over-eager oven, but it was well worth the effort. My perfect substitute for fruit cake.

The next tier was a 25cm, rich Madeira cake. You can taste the butter in every bite. It is one of my favourite cakes. Moist, luxurious. The edges almost crunchy. Okay, very crunchy, because the one I was eating was the first attempt that had burnt in the oven. I used another round of baking paper to prevent the next one from burning. You think you know a cake, then something like this happens. It's alright though, because, once the charred bits had been cut off, mum used the first attempt for a trifle. The top tier was a 15cm chocolate cake. Everybody likes chocolate cake. It's the same recipe as the rich Madeira cake, except I added some cocoa to it.

Once all the cake were cooked and cooled, I began the process of enrobing the cakes in Marzipan and Plastic Icing (a.k.a fondant). The big cake was a bit of a limb-coordination disaster. It took three attempts. Marzipan and Plastic icing each. The smaller cakes were much easier. I stuck the Marzipan to the cake with fig jam instead of the usual apricot jam, because for some reason there was no apricot jam in the house. Actually, I know the reason. I'd been out of town for three weeks. Fig jam tastes better than apricot jam anyway and complements the middle eastern flavour of the dates. I used water to stick the plastic icing to the Marzipan and then smoothed the "skirt" in place.

The making of the individual decorations was a study in frustration. None of my cutters were small enough. The petals and frond-like-things had to be individually cut and molded. I bought the tiny flower cutter. Those things come in handy and it is much cheaper to make the tiny flowers than buy them, especially since many of the bought flowertjies are broken by the time you get them home. I coloured the Plastic icing with a cream gel colour. It probably would have been cheaper to just use modelling chocolate, but I didn't feel like making some at that stage. Each decoration is held in place with royal icing. I also used royal icing to pipe the pearls at the base of each cake to create a necklace at the base of their necks. The bow and ribbon is not made with icing. I've done that before and never again. The board is painted with white chocolate to get a ribbed effect on the board with a paint brush. The flower topper was kindly made for me with great skill by Fabulous Flowers in Cavendish Square, which is possibly my favourite shop.

The wedding was on Saturday in the evening. I think I had about three hours of sleep Friday night, but I got it done and delivered by Saturday morning. My very first solo wedding cake. Let's keep this kind of thing special by doing it rarely.

A very tired Salma, protecting the cake in the boot of the car.

Date and Walnut Cake
500g dried dates, broken into pieces
750g butter, softened
3.5 cups caster sugar
10 eggs
750g self-raising flour
big pinch of salt
2 level tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
0.5 cup oil

Mix the dates with a quarter of the flour, so that the dates are coated. Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time, beating well between each egg. Sift the remaining flour into the butter mixture with the salt and the mixed spice. Fold the dry ingredients carefully into the butter and egg mixture until fully combined. Add the oil and mix to combine. Pour the mixture into a well-greased 35cm diameter round cake tin with baking paper lining the base. Put another round of baking paper on top of the cake. Bake the cake in a 170°C oven for anything between 2 hours and 2.5 hours, depending on the oven.

Madeira Cake and Chocolate Cake (halve the measurements)
500g butter
500g caster sugar
500g self-raising flour (replace a fifth with cocoa powder for the chocolate cake)
8 eggs
1.5-2 cups buttermilk

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each eggs. Fold in the sifter flour (and cocoa, if making the chocolate cake). Add enough buttermilk to loosen the mixture until it has reached dropping consistency. Pile the cake mixture in greased and lined tins. Bake for an hour to 1.5 hours at 180°C.

I did not fill the cakes with fun and interesting frostings, because I did not want to mess the cake up. I may do so next time now that I'm more confident.