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Learning to cook delicious Arabic dishes
Feb. 8th, 2013 11:49 amThis has been a hard week, partly because I work hard all day and spend the nights partying with my friends. My life is just sooooo hard, you know? And when I say party, I mean that my intermediate students had a get together with couscous, salads and tea on Tuesday where they presented me with presents to thank me for being their teacher. Awwwwww!!! I'll post a picture of the bicycle bags they gave me to replace the old run down bags I have now when I have them installed.
Wednesday was FaKyMa. We did an hour of having dinner and catching up, and two hours of practicing Khaleegy, melaya leff, our Enchanted Gardens and our drum solo choreography. For someone who feels like she isn't doing much with dance these days, this week looks pretty full with dance activities.
Thursday night I travelled to a small town near Arnhem with Annelies, one of my intermediate student whos is also a friend. For my birthday she gave me an Arabic cooking workshop. A small Arabic looking women in her forties welcomed us into her spacious professional kitchen. the kitchen seamlessly flowed into a lounge area with rugs, pillows and the swirly shiny trays that are so common in the Middle-East. The group consisted out of ten people, mostly middle aged women. Two guys: Hans, husband to Marianne who looked sweet and quiet, and Jeroen, a 2.07 m tall twenty something boy who came with his controlfreak loudmouth mother.
The teacher was fara, who emigrated to the Netherlands from Iraq twenty years ago with her family. She had been in catering ever since and recently added the workshops as an extra mean of income. She is a no-nonsense tiny women, muttering to herself and being everywhere at once in the kitchen.
We made six dishes in total with the group, Annelies and I were in charge of the salad. We finished early so we jumped into doing stuff for the baklava too, because OMG baklava! I haven't gotten the recipy sheets yet but it was all delicious. There was a tajine dish with eight vegetables and lamb, chicken with olives, the potato olive salad, bulgur (type of Turkish cooked wheat), lentil soup, baklava and minced meat rolled up in slices of eggplant with tomato sauce.
It was suprisingly easy to make these dishes, I think everything was done in about two hours. The soup and salad are quick and easy to make, or to prepare in advance. We also received a masterclass on What Makes Baklava Delicious. Turns out that cheap baklava is made with low quality nuts and too much sirup, increasing the weight exponentially with the syrup so they can charge more. Baklava is like the English word for cookie: there are many types and styles of baklava, some with nuts, others without. We made baklava with the stringy dough, fileld with cream and mozzarella and topped with nuts and ate it while it was still warm. it was absolutely breathtaking, not too sweet but a perfect mix between crunchy and sweet with the taste of rosewater in the background.
I highly recommend taking a workshop to learn more about Arabic food, as I have previous not gotten further then making coucous salad, couscous with vegetables and chicken, and bread with baba ganoush/hummus. The tricks that I learned where that you have to find a decent Arabic super market and get a good source for the herbmix and you are all set. For the baklava, I can get all the ingredients from the shop next door* so I might try it next time I want to make a desert.
Oh, and did not disclose the fact that I was a bellydancer during the worksop. busy controlfreak mother refered to bellydancing in a joking fashion several times during the night, at which point I averted my eyes and laughed along. Didn't feel like it was the right time and place.
*I live in a street filled with Turkish supermarkets and kebab shops. I live in bellydancer heaven
Wednesday was FaKyMa. We did an hour of having dinner and catching up, and two hours of practicing Khaleegy, melaya leff, our Enchanted Gardens and our drum solo choreography. For someone who feels like she isn't doing much with dance these days, this week looks pretty full with dance activities.
Thursday night I travelled to a small town near Arnhem with Annelies, one of my intermediate student whos is also a friend. For my birthday she gave me an Arabic cooking workshop. A small Arabic looking women in her forties welcomed us into her spacious professional kitchen. the kitchen seamlessly flowed into a lounge area with rugs, pillows and the swirly shiny trays that are so common in the Middle-East. The group consisted out of ten people, mostly middle aged women. Two guys: Hans, husband to Marianne who looked sweet and quiet, and Jeroen, a 2.07 m tall twenty something boy who came with his controlfreak loudmouth mother.
The teacher was fara, who emigrated to the Netherlands from Iraq twenty years ago with her family. She had been in catering ever since and recently added the workshops as an extra mean of income. She is a no-nonsense tiny women, muttering to herself and being everywhere at once in the kitchen.
We made six dishes in total with the group, Annelies and I were in charge of the salad. We finished early so we jumped into doing stuff for the baklava too, because OMG baklava! I haven't gotten the recipy sheets yet but it was all delicious. There was a tajine dish with eight vegetables and lamb, chicken with olives, the potato olive salad, bulgur (type of Turkish cooked wheat), lentil soup, baklava and minced meat rolled up in slices of eggplant with tomato sauce.
It was suprisingly easy to make these dishes, I think everything was done in about two hours. The soup and salad are quick and easy to make, or to prepare in advance. We also received a masterclass on What Makes Baklava Delicious. Turns out that cheap baklava is made with low quality nuts and too much sirup, increasing the weight exponentially with the syrup so they can charge more. Baklava is like the English word for cookie: there are many types and styles of baklava, some with nuts, others without. We made baklava with the stringy dough, fileld with cream and mozzarella and topped with nuts and ate it while it was still warm. it was absolutely breathtaking, not too sweet but a perfect mix between crunchy and sweet with the taste of rosewater in the background.
I highly recommend taking a workshop to learn more about Arabic food, as I have previous not gotten further then making coucous salad, couscous with vegetables and chicken, and bread with baba ganoush/hummus. The tricks that I learned where that you have to find a decent Arabic super market and get a good source for the herbmix and you are all set. For the baklava, I can get all the ingredients from the shop next door* so I might try it next time I want to make a desert.
Oh, and did not disclose the fact that I was a bellydancer during the worksop. busy controlfreak mother refered to bellydancing in a joking fashion several times during the night, at which point I averted my eyes and laughed along. Didn't feel like it was the right time and place.
*I live in a street filled with Turkish supermarkets and kebab shops. I live in bellydancer heaven
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