Fried Halloumi

Oh, the charm of fresh slabs of creamy, white fried halloumi with those scorched brown lines in it – warm and soft, the slight tang of the raw cheese transformed by its cooking.

Fried halloumi, 'halloum meshwe' in Arabic, is traditionally part of a Levantine mezze. Like much of Levantine cuisine, everyone claims it as their own, but it's thought that halloumi is 'properly' Cypriot. Halloumi dates back to the Byzantine period and that great mix of ideas, thought and culture that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean and traditionally has flecks of mint in it - mint was originally used to store the cheese and keep it fresh.

There’s no great secret to fried halloumi. Slice the cheese, about 1cm thickness or just under (if you slice it too thin, it’ll get messy when you cook it) heat up the grill pan and place the slices on the hot pan. Fry them for a minute or so before turning them over with a spatula, using a swift, confident stroke and uttering a sharp ‘Ha!’ just to let the cheese know who’s boss.

Some people apparently dust the cheese slices with flour. I think this is unnecessary myself.

It’s nice served with drinks as well. It’s also great barbecued and gives everyone something to nibble on while you’re getting all alpha male with the slabs of meat.

Ramadan Kareem!

There’s no time in the Muslim calendar where food matters as much as Ramadan, although you’d be forgiven for thinking about it as a food-free occasion. If you’d ever actually tried fasting, you’d start to appreciate quite how much food can matter! The 30-day fast is arguably a hardcore version of the Christian Lenten fast – an annual occasion where devotion to God takes place of all else and where abstinence is a constant reminder that we owe our existence to a greater purpose.

The fast of Ramadan begins at sunrise: formally, at the moment when it is possible to differentiate a black and white thread in the dawn light. Because the Muslim, or Hijri, Calendar is lunar, Ramadan moves ahead compared to the Gregorian calendar each year. That means an advancement of approximately 10 days each year. So we’ll be looking at Ramadan ending at approximately the 1st October and then being followed by Eid Al Fitr at around the 1st - 5th October. The next Eid is Edi Al Adha – some 70 days on from Eid Al Fitr, Eid Al Adha would fall this year at around the 10th December. In the UAE, where National Day falls on the 2nd December, the month is already starting to look somewhat disrupted!

Ramadan eating patterns are pretty different. The fast is broken at dusk, with the maghrib prayer followed by ‘Iftar’. The fast is actually broken by taking a symbolic date and a drink of pure water before going to the mosque and praying. Following this prayer, the family returns from the mosque and iftar, the first meal ending the fast, is taken – literally, break-fast: the origin of the English phrase being, of course, religious.

This perhaps explains the controversy over advertisements that portray people waiting for the prayer before going mad and attacking a piece of chicken: Iftar is supposed to be perhaps a little more.... errr.. spiritual than just guzzling grub on the bell.

The traditional food of Ramadan is heavyweight stuff, though. Iftar, the breaking of the fast, sees a traditional soup starter followed by heavier foods to hit the empty bellies of people that have been waiting 8 hours and more to eat. Traditional fast-breakers include foods such as ‘harees’, a porridge of cracked wheat, stock and spiced shredded chicken. In the Gulf, particularly the Emirates, traditional evening dishes include Matchbous, a heavy stew of lamb, tomatoes and rice flavoured with spices and dried limes (‘loomi’ if you don’t mind). Other versions of this most fundamental Bedouin food include ‘Kebseh’, the Egyptian ‘Kucheri’ (a cousin of the Anglo-Indian dish ‘Kedgree’, incidentally) and the Jordanian ‘Mensaf’. These all translate into the English ‘Mutton grab’.

Following Iftar, Suhour is a social occasion revolving around rich food dishes; meats; heavy, fatty dairy and rice-heavy dishes and then meat, dairy and carbohydrate melanges. Kebbeh in yoghurt, meat-filled spicy dumplings in yoghurt topped with fried bread, stuffed courgettes, stews and biryanis would be the order of the day. These are then followed by rich desserts such as crème caramel – a perennial favourite in the Gulf and a dessert which suits a palate that favours heavy, sweet, rich and creamy puddings.

Although the suhour meal served in the hotels is heavy, many families (particularly from the Levant) would take a social lighter meal with friends around midnight.

But we’re looking, basically, at ‘peasant food’ – big stomach fillers, food to see you through the hard day ahead and fast sustenance with a long, hard day ahead in mind.

Just to start you off, here are a couple of Ramadan menu suggestions!

A Ramadan Menu

Butternut Squash Soup
An Armenian Carrot Soup

Lamb Potato Cakes
Stuffed Aubergines

Matchbous
Chicken Tagine

Créme Caramel

Of course, you can always look through the archives using the tabs to the right of The Fat Expat for more ideas and menu combinations - enjoy!

Garlic Sauce

DXBluey was asking about a recipe for Lebanese garlic sauce a while ago and here is the answer – albeit belated! It’s basically an incredibly strong aioli or garlic mayonnaise and is the only accompaniment to Shish Taouk and any other variation on a Levantine marinated chicken kebab. And in case you were wondering where on earth you’d get a recipe for a Levantine marinated chicken kebab, never fear – The Fat Expat’s here!

Or serve it with barbecue burgers or French cut lamb chops given a smack on their meaty bit with a tenderising hammer and cooked to perfection over a hot barbecue with nothing done to them than a generous smattering of pepper and salt rubbed in before they’re slammed on the hot grill to crispen and then removed before they quite cook through, leaving them pinkly tender in the middle. Woof Woof!

Ingredients

• 10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 egg yolk
• 125ml olive oil
• 1 tsp salt

Whizz the garlic, lemon, salt and juice together and then add the olive oil – do this slowly, at the most a gentle string of oil should be poured constantly into the mixture as it whizzes, if you overdo the oil and it doesn’t mix in well, it’ll curdle and you’ll be left with an unrecoverable mess and you might not think everyone else will know you goofed, but they will and they’ll laugh at you as you walk down the street. Behind your back, of course.

As you pour the oil, the mixture will start to stiffen, leaving you with a glistening, rich paste that packs as much garlic punch as a French garlic farmer’s breath just after he’s left the annual garlic tasting festival where he’s been officiating as a judge.

Levantine Bits and Bobs

If you want to turn a simple mezze into something altogether more special, there are a few bits and bobs you can slip onto the table that will really lift everything with minimal effort. No mezze is really complete without a dish of olives, and a salad of cos lettuce leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, chillies a pepper and lemon. Here are some other ideas::

Iced Almonds

Soak whole almonds in cold water in the fridge: ideally overnight. The skins take on a beautiful translucence and the almonds soften: serve them chilled, even with a little crushed ice.

Termos

You’ll find these fat little yellow beans, pronounced ‘termous’ lurking in vaccum packed bags the refrigerated section of ‘local’ supermarkets like Co-ops. Watch out for the sell-by date AS They don’t keep for very long fresh and, although you can get them dried, fresh is the way you want them. Give them a rinse and serve them up either as a nibble with drinks or as a dish in the mezze.

Erbs

Serve a plate of mixed leaves up with it all: dill, rocket, basil, tarragon, mint and parsley are good.

Armenian Chicken

I suppose Armenian chicken should really be called chickenanian. This is simple, relatively fast, delicious and characteristically Armenian, a hot, red rich stew from that country of chilli lovers from the northernmost Mediterranean. Serve it with basmati rice or perhaps just with some crusty bread and a salad as the weather gets warmer.

You might raise an eyebrow at the quantity of garlic. But when you’ve finished, just get on with it, do as you’re told and roughly chop up ten largeish cloves to pop into the pan. I’m not going to try and tell you that you’ll smell of peaches when you’ve eaten this, because you won’t. If you’re sensible, you’ll quaff great draughts of massively ballsy red with it and end up smelling like an Anatolian farmer after a market-day celebration.

If you’ve never smelled an Anatolian farmer after a market-day celebration, you’re in for a real treat…

It’s odd that it had never struck me until I typed this recipe up for this post, but this recipe is actually remarkably similar to the Jordanian Tagine recipe I picked up from a chef in a small (and now sadly defunct) restaurant around the back of Amman’s First Circle. As usual with Middle Eastern food, what goes around comes around and my chef, presumably of Armenian or Circassian origin, had obviously modified this Armenian recipe with the addition of some North African spice and labelled it ‘tagine’. This recipe, of course, is nearer to a ‘real’ tagine. And the recipe below, of course, is now Armenian Chicken. And now that everything’s put back in its proper place, we shall proceed…

Ingredients

• 1 kg chicken breast
• 2 red chilis, deseeded & chopped
• 10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 50 ml hot water
• A good pinch of saffron threads
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp dried chilli
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 tsp salt
• Plenty black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil

1 kg should be around four largeish chicken breasts. Put these in a bowl along with the salt and a load of pepper. Soak the saffron in the hot water for a few minutes and then put this along with the garlic and chilli in a small blender and whiz it. Add this mixture to the chicken, stir it all in well and leave to marinate for as long as you like: at least half an hour.

Drain the chicken of excess marinade and then, in a large covered frying pan, fry up the chicken, turning it until it colours and starts to brown all over. Add the rest of the marinade mixture and the ground coriander, oregano and chilli. Fry for two minutes, stirring to combine it all and then add the tomatoes. Cook for a further two minutes to heat the mixture and then turn the heat to low, cover and leave to cook away for another ten minutes or so. Add the chickpeas and the lemon juice, stir in and cook for a further five minutes and then cook, uncovered, on a higher heat for five minutes to bubble and reduce a little.

Shish Taouk

This is for DXBluey, who wanted it so that he could continue to try and set fire to his apartment block by holding illegal barbies on the balcony. If you'd rather something more traditionally 'khaleeji' for Eid, try this!

Shish taouk is one of the mainstays of Levantine cookery and, as such, is claimed by everyone as uniquely theirs. It has to be said, though, the Armenians' claim seems pretty strong given the presence of ingredients like paprika which take us up into that area of the world that borders Georgia and the 'stans' - and the spicy foods that make up so much of their cuisine. However, like much of the food from this rich and fertile corner of the Mediterranean basin, the truth probably lies in a mixture of influences and ideas from all over - and the general agreement that this is damn fine food and therefore cooked by everyone.

This is a 'classic' home recipe taouk - no colourings used here thank you (did you think restaurants did it naturally?) - halve the lemon juice and oil and add a few tablespoons of yoghurt to make a silky, yoghurt marinade. This is traditionally made on flat bladed skewers, but I tend to use bamboo ones. And where I'm grilling rather than barbecuing, I'll line the grill tray with foil to avoid the nasty job of washing up all that burnt-on gook, pushing it down between the bars so that the juices can still collect under the meat. That one idea has saved me more kitchen grief over the years than virtually any thing else I can think of!

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts, cut in 2cm cube
• 2 lemons, juice and grated zest
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp powdered cumin
• 2 tsp powdered paprika
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• Lots of black pepper
• Skewers

Mix everything together well in a bowl to marinate for as long as you can, ideally overnight. Thread onto skewers and grill for 6-8 minutes each side, basting occasionally with left over marinade. And that's it. Serve with a mezze and perhaps follow up with a traditional dessert like muhalabieh (or perhaps a more modern Arab favourite, créme caramel, or a non-traditional eid custard).

Shawarma. The ultimate fast food...

Why has the world got MacDonalds when it could have shawarma joints?

Get a 'fat lady's leg' of tightly packed, succulent chicken and put it on a vertical rotisserie (you also get beef shawarmas), then slice it off when cooked by the coal or gas grill behind it. For some reason the best of them put a lump of fat and an orange or lemon on top of the whole shebang. Now chop up the sliced, cooked chicken in the hot fat that collects on the tray below the cooking kebab, then scoop it up into an opened out Arabic bread that's been warming at the back of the tray and add some garlic paste, pickle, tahine and a couple of chips. Wrap it up in a twist of clean, thin white paper and present it to the happy purchaser for Dhs 3, which is less than a dollar. It used to be Dhs 2.5 before petrol went up and the dollar got screwed.

The result is the ultimate fast food: piping hot, clean, nutritious, inexpensive and fundamentally delicious, aromatic and savoury, the bite of pickle and the slightly spicy taste of the marinated chicken. The chicken is always just a bit too salty, like a great bar snack. You just want more of the juicy bits to ameliorate the salt, so you just eat more. I've been eating shawarmas for 20 years now and still love them like that love at first bite. Why they haven't taken over the world is a major mystery. If you're in London and want to try shawarma, go to Green Park. Wander the streets thereabout and you'll bump into shawarmas. If you're lucky, a shawarma pimp will run into you.

I once ran a big April 1^st editorial piece on shawarmas in the BBC Gulfwide magazine wot I used to edit and produce. It was a great piece of silly fantasy (the piece, not the magazine. The magazine had real people writing for it like John Beasant, Simon Tiptree, Anne Malin and Tuesday Belgravia): but the article was pages of sheer idiocy illustrated with old line drawings of Turkish Beys and photos of bedouin tents in the Jordanian black sands. The idea was that shawarmas were actually animals and were being hunted to extinction. I even had a quote from TE Lawrence that used a lot of colons in it (he was very fond of colons and no, I'm not being rude) for absolute authenticity. The article ended with a fax number for 'Save Our Shawarmas' or SOS. We got faxes of support. I was so happy with myself. But then you'll already have worked out that I am incredibly easily amused.

So where's the best shawarma in the Emirates to be had? My money's on Sharjah's Auberge restaurant, top of Al Arouba, can't miss it - closely followed by Fawar on King Faisal street...

In Saudi Arabia, it's the big shawarma joint by the traffic lights on the main drag down from the airport road in Riyadh which is so busy they cut the meat with circular saws. No kidding. You can sit and have your shawarma and strawberry juice while you wait for the inevitable traffic incident to provide some lunchtime light entertainment...

But my money, for the best shawarma in the Middle East, has to go to the Syrians. The Shawarmas of Halab break all the rules imaginable and are legendary. They'll put just about anything in 'em and they're fantastic!

Tagine

I’ve already shared a recipe for a Jordanian tagine, which is a little bit like sharing a recipe for a French Bierwurst or a Swiss Paella. So here’s a truly ‘Moroccan style’ tagine, for what that’s worth.

Like much Middle Eastern food, this dish wouldn’t look out of place being served on a manor house table in the Middle Ages, where it would likely take its place in a ‘trencher’ – a plate carved out of bread. The idea of mixing meat, dried fruit and spices dominated cookery throughout that period and came to European cuisine through the incredible cross-fertilisation of cultures that took place in the Mediterranean basin from the late C9th through to the fall of Byzantium in the C15th. Is tagine crusader food? Did the Knights Templar and Hospitaller learn to mask strong (old) meat with spice and sweet fruit in the Middle East and take the method back to Europe with them?

Or did the Romans get there first?

Whatever the cultural mixture, the end result would transform cookery in both Europe and the Middle East, establishing the demand for expensive spices such as cardamom, pepper and cinnamon in Europe. The Romans had already discovered the delights of laser (asafoetida or heeng to you and me, mate) as well as these other spices, but it is in Medieval cookery that we first start to see these incredibly rich stews of meat, fruit and nuts. Seasonally apt for the timing of this post, this mixture of ingredients eventually became mincemeat – which today only preserves suet (animal fat) from the original meat in the mixture.

And so we arrive at my argument. Your mince pie owes its origin to dishes like tagine – spice, fruit and meat together in a harmonious and thoroughly enjoyable stew.

Serve with couscous...

Chicken and Apricot Tagine

A Jordanian Tagine

Chicken Tagine

Lamb and prunes, chicken and preserved lemons, goat and pears or this recipe which uses dried apricots – all tagines mix meat and fruit with spice to create a highly aromatic stew that almost touches on the ‘mutton grabs’ or kebse of Middle Eastern cuisine. But in North Africa, couscous takes the place of rice: cracked wheat, soaked and cooked up with vegetables, stock or anything that comes to hand.

Tagine is not fancy food: make it chunky and rustic if you want to really get those flavours to explode with every mouthful. Or liquidise it if you are feeding babies…

I soak my apricots in wine, but this is naughty. Use water to be properly authentic.

I use breast meat because it’s easier. Ideally, you should use full chopped chickens, legs or bony breasts. If you do, increase the cooking time to 35-45 minutes.

The apricots can be soaked for a couple of hours but should be let soak overnight, ideally.

A last note. Sarah loves this served not with couscous but with basmati rice piled up in a deep bowl that preserves the heat. She married me: what can I say – she’s strange.

Ingredients

• 200g dried apricots, soaked
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
• 2 onions, chopped roughly
• 4 breasts chicken (800g), in chunks
• 2” fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tsp harissa paste
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 4 tbsp runny honey
• ½ cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped
• 500ml good chicken stock
• A generous pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Fry off the onions in the oil over a medium heat, stirring to stop them burning and letting them turn transparent and start to go golden. Add the chicken, stirring it to brown it slightly then add the harissa, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cumin and saffron and stir it all up to let everything combine and sizzle up nicely. Drain the soaked apricots and then add these, stir them in and then add the honey and, finally, the stock. Add half the fresh coriander. From this point, the dish will be cooked in 15 minutes, covered but with the occasional stir. If you’re doing this for a dinner party, you can turn off the heat after 10 minutes and cover the dish, reheating when you’re ready.

Sprinkle the rest of the coriander over when you’re serving it up.

Domates Salatasi

This is a classic Levantine salad, but I've always found it's a great barbecue accompaniment. Whether you're serving in a mezze or alongside a grill, presentation is nine points of the law, so try and match the cucumber and tomato sizes!

Ingredients

• 4 ripe tomatoes
  
• 1 cucumber
  
• 1 lemon, juice and grated zest
  
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
  
• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh mint
  
• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
  
• Olives and parsley sprigs to garnish

Cut a small cross in the skin of the tomatoes at the top, then put them in a bowl and pour over a kettle of boiling water. Leave them for a few seconds until the skins start to peel back (about 15-20 seconds should do it) and then pour out the water and rinse the tomatoes under a cold tap as you pull off the skins. Peel the cucumbers, and drag a fork along their length to score them. Slice the tomatoes and cucumber thinly and layer them side by side on a dish. Beat the lemon juice, zest, vinegar, oil and herbs with about 1/2 tsp salt and pour this over the salad. Chill for a while and then garnish with the olive and parsley and a grating of pepper to serve.

Café Arabesque

Café Arabesque

Park Hyatt Hotel, Dubai

Bookings: 04 602 1234

Dubai and Tokyo are the only two cities in the world to have all three Hyatts: the Regency, Grand and Park brands are all here. The Regency’s been around for donkeys’, as has its famous revolving restaurant - Sarah has always called it the revolting restaurant, which is an unfair pun as the food’s always been fine. The Grand lives up to its name, a Ssanyong built pile that mixes clean-line uber-chic architecture with art deco and arabesque and somehow, amazingly, gets away with it. And the Park Hyatt is probably my favourite Dubai hotel: it’s always a treat, personally and professionally, to find myself there. So this is a biased review by a fan, basically. :)

Lunch at the Park Hyatt’s Café Arabesque, which is effectively the coffee shop in this ‘boutique’ high end Hyatt property, is a light and airy affair. The Park Hyatt is, in any case, a light and airy hotel: a studied uber-funky pile, this aptly named restaurant is the Park's most Arab outlet and is decorated in Islamic patterned, pearlescent white, with large creek facing windows looking out, across the pergolas, white walls and blue domes that make the Park Hyatt feel so very, well, Mediterranean.

So there are no club sandwiches on offer at Café Arabesque, which mixes buffet and á la carte, offering three nationally themed mezze stations (Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese) and then, from the menu a range of hot mezze and main courses, with a trip back to a buffet of Arab sweets, desserts such as kneffe, Lebanese sweets (heaps of nuts, filo, butter and honey) and fresh fruits served on ice. Frankly, most lunches I’ve had here have started and ended with the mezze which, at around $15, has to be the best value, fastest and most delicious business lunch in Dubai.

The meal starts with a selection of nibbles brought to the table, a bowl of beans (‘termous’) another of soaked almonds and a bowl of mixed salad: all a little more refined than the ‘traditional’ offering of everything in the garden piled around a whole cos lettuce. We ordered simply a Lebanese Shish Taouk (there are two taouks on the menu, a ‘Lebanese’ taouk marinated in yoghurt and a ‘Jordanian’ one without. That distinction alone will cause a huge punchup if you’re dining in the right company, let alone the comparisons between the three mezze tables. Who does make the best tabbouleh? Just light the blue touch paper and stand back!) and then hit the cold mezze.

It’s a magnificent selection which reverses the way things are normally done in the Arab world, where the mezze is brought to the table and laid out in front of you (there are restaurants in Lebanon that pride themselves in offering over 200 mezze items!) – at Café Arabesque, you go to the mezze and it’s more practical for smaller scale dining: a dip here, a mix there. And the choice is magnificent, all the old favourites rub shoulders with selections of the Middle East’s savoury cheeses, including the deliciously bitter and dry shanklish (along with herbs, tomato and onion, as tradition dictates). There are butter bean salads, tahine salads, toasted cauliflower salads, pepper and tomato, potato, herb and bean salads. There are a huge range of well selected flavours and textures on offer: crunchy, sharp, oily, bitter, sweet, fragrant, soft, harsh and seductive. It’s all there. And then there’s a bowl of breads brought to you, too: little puffy breads, koubiz and thick triangles of a leavened bread to boot.

So by the time the Shish Taouk comes, we’ve over done it. Which is awful, because the chicken is grilled to perfection; hot, fragrant but subtly flavoured with a hint of garlic and a soft moist texture: it melts in the mouth and we both keep eating well beyond satiety. The desserts look excellent but we’ve gone too far: just enough room for coffee and that’s good, too.

A great meal: one of those meals where you pass stuff across the table on your fork because your partner has just got to try that. And there’s scant praise higher than that…

Lamb Potato Cakes

I'm immensely fond of these and they're simple to make, even if the recipe does look terribly complicated. The end result, crisp on the outside, fluffy and hot on the inside with a sweet, spicy dip, is simply an absolute treat. It's a simple three-step: make the peach dip up, then the potato mixture and then the meat filling. Then it's just down to spooning filling into the potato to make the cakes. Simple!

These are a good old fashioned Arab favourite and, as usual with these core dishes, everyone in the Arab world claims them as their own and will happily wrangle over their provenance until the plate is cleared...

Ingredients

500g potatoes
3/4 cup burghul (cracked wheat)
1/4 cup plain flour
1 egg
1 tsp salt

Filling
2 tbsp olive oil
1 white onion (@250g )
500g ground lamb
1/4 cup chopped almonds
100g chopped dried apricots
1 tsp baharat
175 ml water
1 tsp salt

Peach dip
3 peaches, chopped
1 tbsp chopped onion
2 tbsp olive oil
50g walnut halves
2 tbsp vinegar (Balsamic is ideal)
1 tbsp date syrup
125ml water

Make the peach dip first: fry the chopped onion until it starts to brown, then add the peach pieces and the walnut halves. Cook for 1 minute, and then add the water. Cook for a further two minutes, then add all the other ingreditents. Cook for 15 minutes, uncovered, then leave to cool. When it's safe, blend the sauce and, if you like, strain it. It'll store in the fridge for days.
Now for the cakes. Chop the onion finely. Peel, cube and then boil the potatoes until tender, then dry mash them. Soak the burghul for 15 minutes, then press it dry. Mix the burghul and the mashed potato, then add the flour and the egg, beaten, into the combined burghul and potato. Season and mix well. Form into balls, wetting your hands first to stop the mixture sticking to them. This recipe should make 10 balls.

Fry the onion until it is translucent, then increase the heat, add the lamb and fry it until it browns. Stir in the other filling ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat to cool.

Flatten each burghul ball out, in the palm of your hand, and place a generous teaspoon of filling in the centre. Reshape into a ball, and then flatten slightly to form a cake.

Deep fry the cakes in hot oil, turning after about 3 minutes. Serve with the peach dip.

Matchbous

Matchbous is a classic 'Khaleeji' dish, a lamb, rice and tomato stew that comes from the same school of thought as 'kuchery', 'mensaf' and the other meat and rice mixtures that are cooked around the Middle East, including the famous bedouin 'mutton grab'.

Like many Gulf dishes, it uses ‘loomi’, or dried lime, as a seasoning. If you can’t, for any reason (for instance, if you're not actually living in the Middle East or on the Edgeware road), find true loomi, then grate the rind from a fresh lime, and use this instead. It's also based on a 'masala' or spice mixture, known in the Middle East as baharat - the ingredient links to a baharat recipe.

By all means substitute olive oil for the ghee if you're worrying about the health aspects of this recipe. But, honestly, a couple of tablespoons of clarified butter ain't going to make a huge amount of difference if you're planning to wolf down this mega-meal!

Using tinned chopped tomatoes, especially the kind mixed with garlic, not only cuts down on the workload, but improves the flavour and texture of the matchbous as well. Yes, I know Wilfred Thesiger wouldn't have done it like that. But I wouldn't do many of the things he probably did...

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg lamb shoulder, in 4 pieces on the bone
• 2 large onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp ghee
• 1 tbsp baharat
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tins chopped, peeled tomatoes
• 5 cloves
• ½ tsp powdered loomi
• 3 pieces cassia bark
• 6 cardamom pods
• 3 tsp salt
• 750ml water
• ½ cup chopped coriander
• 2 cups basmati rice

Fry the onions in the ghee using a large pan over a medium heat, until they turn transparent. Add the baharat and turmeric, and cook until the spices and onion are thoroughly mixed. Add the lamb pieces, and turn to coat with the spices, Cook until the lamb browns. Add the tomatoes, the other spices and the salt. Cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the water and the coriander to the pan, cover tightly and cook over a low heat for 2 hours, or until the meat is tender. Add the rice, bring the pan to the boil, then reduce the heat to low again, to simmer the matchbous for 20-25 minutes, until the rice is cooked. Remove the cover, turn off the heat and stir the mixture once. Pile the matchbous onto a serving platter, placing the meat on top. Serve with a green salad and yoghurt or laban.

Baharat

This ‘masala’ or spice mixture is used extensively in Gulf cookery and you’ll need it to make matchbous. These quantities make a smallish amount, suitable for the experimenter rather than the dedicated ‘Gulf’ cook! Arab families will have their own favourite variant, but might like to try this one for a change...

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp broken cassia
• 1 tsp cloves
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp cardamom pods
• 1 tsp ground nutmedg
• 1 tbsp paprika

Grind the spices and bottle them. If you have to grind them in batches, mix them up well once they are bottled.

Eid Custards

This custard could live with being made the day before so that the flavours really settle in. It's called Eid Custard because I made it up for a feature I did on Ramadan food: Eid Al Fitr is the celebration that follows the month of fasting and the Middle East LOVES custard and, in fact all things creamy. And it loves dried fruit and nuts, too. So I just put everything everyone likes together!

If you can use a vanilla pod, scraped to get the velvety-tasting seeds out, then do so instead of using vanilla essence.

Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• 480ml double cream
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 4 dates, chopped
• 40g pistachios, chopped
• 40 skinned almonds, whole
• 1 tbsp orange flower water

Put the almonds into the orange flower water, and shake them around to coat. Leave them to soak.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together with the vanilla essence in a roomy mixing bowl while you heat the cream in a pan over a medium heat stirring occasionally and generally taking care not to burn it. It should be just on the point of boiling but not actually rising up the pan. Pour the hot cream over the eggs in a steady stream, whisking all the time.

Return the mixture to the pan you used to heat the cream in, and heat gently, stirring to stop the mixture sticking, lumping or over-heating (the latter means a curdle and we don't want that). If you're scared of curdling, do it in a double boiler or a pyrex dish suspended over a pan of boiling water. over boiling water for ten minutes, stirring continuously. Don’t stop stirring for anything: if you do, all is lost!

After a couple of minutes, the custard should thicken nicely and adhere to the back of a spoon placed in it. Remove the pan from the heat but keep stirring for a couple more minutes, then cover the bowl with cling film to stop a skin forming on the custard. Leave it to cool for 15 minutes or so.

Add the chopped dates, the pistachios and the whole almonds to the custard and mix them in well. Fill four glasse with the custard mixture. Stand, covered, in the ‘fridge to cool and thicken further overnight. Serve. You could top the glasses off with a whorl of cream or some chopped soaked apricots, or perhaps with a dash of honey. Or all of the above!

Couscous

A mightily abused North African ingredient, it is also a very rude word in Arabic, just get the context and intonation wrong and you'll soon find yourself surrounded by people rendered totally helpless through laughter. If this happens, club them before they recover.

It helps to avoid phrases such as 'Mariam's couscous is really tasty'.

Couscous is a small grained semolina, made from durum wheat and used throughout North Africa and the Levant. The packs you buy in supermarkets have been pre-steamed, but the original stuff of North Africa is steamed over a broth. This means that supermarket couscous can be prepared simply by adding boiling water or stock, then fluffing it with a fork after it's soaked for a few minutes.

Buying pre-flavoured couscous, particularly with some daft chef-goon's face on it, is a terrible thing to do. What a waste of money and what a terrible thing to eat: all nature identical ingredients that fill your mouth with the neon plasticity of too-strong, too-bright flavours.

No. Be an adventurer. Make your own couscous. Then add things as you see fit. Try it with a tagine or pop in some grilled vegetables to make a salad. Or make it with a strong stock and just have it nice and plain.

The Jordanian Chef Story

It's not much of a story, but here goes anyway. For a time there was a restaurant just down from the First Circle in Amman, which had a conservatory front and which was warm and red-lit. It was called 'The Patio'. It was the perfect haven from the dark, rainy, cold Jordanian winter nights and had a pot-bellied iron stove in the middle of the floor that gave out immense heat. The rain would patter on the glass roof while you sat on gaily-coloured cushions drinking red wine and chatting.

Their tagine was stupendous. I used to go back every trip for more. Whenever my pal Lena would ask where we should go for dinner, I'd try and get us to the Patio.

It was so good. The guy had to be Tunisian or something. Fragrant, delicious, tender chicken floating in a sharp, harissa-spiced chickpea broth laced with flakes of red-tinged onion.

It had no fruit or nuts or other stuff in it. In fact, it's not really a proper tagine, but the type of mixture that maghrebis serve around hot couscous. It didn't alter the fact that it was delicious.

I finally cracked and asked to talk to the chef. I wanted the recipe.

We chatted by the kitchen door. He was Jordanian. In pidgin English and Arabic, we went through the magical process. He kept talking about 'spice', adding 'spice'. I asked him to show me the spices. He came back, smiling sheepishly, with a plastic bag of Tunisian spice mix.

The next time we went back, oddly, The Patio had closed. I suppose it was meant to be: I'd never try the tagine again and have my romantic vision of a maghrebi chef cooking up mama's own tagine spoiled by the knowledge that it was all down to a supermarket spice mix.

Recipes

A Jordanian Tagine
Harissa Paste
Couscous Salad

Couscous Salad

Couscous is a great collector of flavours, and yet adds its own nuttiness to almost every recipe it’s used in. This is a spicy salad, great with barbecues but is also nice with a snappy little tagine!

Ingredients

• 500ml chicken stock
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 250g chicken breast, chopped
• 200g couscous
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1/2 cucumber, diced
• 1 green apple, diced
• 50g currants
• 1 can chick peas, drained & rinsed
• 1 lemon, juiced
• ½ tsp salt

Whisk together the chicken stock, cinnamon, ginger, cumin, turmeric and two tablespoons of olive oil. Bring this mixture to a boil, and then reduce to a low simmer, adding the chicken breast. Poach the chicken breast until white throughout, for about 5-8 minutes, then remove the chicken using a slotted spoon, and reserve.

Return the stock mixture to a boil, and add the couscous slowly, stirring it into the mixture thoroughly. Boil for one minute, then remove the pan from the heat, cover tightly and stand for 15 minutes.

Break up the couscous grains using a fork, and then place the mixture in a mixing bowl, breaking up any remaining lumps as the mixture cools. It may be necessary to rub the grains with your fingers to remove lumps.

Add the diced ingredients to the couscous, and toss it thoroughly to mix. Mix together the remaining olive oil and the lemon juice, and season with plenty of black pepper and salt, until it forms a vinaigrette. Pour this over the salad, and leave it to stand for a while, three to four hours if you can, before serving.

Harissa

Harissa is a fiery, North African chili paste. My favourite one is Tunisian ('Harissa du Cap Bon', it's called) and comes in a yellow tube with a picture of a lighthouse on it. I just like the packaging. If you can't get it: make it...

Ingredients

• 60g chopped red chilis
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 red pepper, skinned, deseeded & chopped
  
• 1 tsp coriander seed, ground
• 1 tsp caraway seed, ground
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Whizz it all together. It'll freeze or you can store it in the fridge by putting a layer of oil over it. If you want to cut down on the chili zap factor, de-seed the chilis first.

Chicken Tagine - Jordan Style!

I stole this recipe from a Jordanian chef. I rarely embarrass myself or chefs by scabbing for a recipe at the end of a meal, but this was so good I had to. The recipe is as unlike a North African tagine as you're going to get. Oh, and it's also dead easy to make! Instead of the lean chicken used in the recipe, try it with a greater weight (about a 1kg bird) of chicken on the bone, chopped into pieces. Excellent!

This should ideally (traditionally) be served up with a steaming, fragrant couscous that's been steeping in stock and spice, but some people hate the graininess of couscous, in which case rice does nicely. A salad of couscous and grilled vegetables is also a neat accompaniment.

Ingredients

• 500g chicken, cubed
• 1 tin chickpeas
• 1 onion, chopped roughly
• 1 tsp harissa paste
• 500ml good chicken stock
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1 3cm cinnamon stick
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tsp tomato paste

Fry off the onion over a medium heat until it turns transparent, then add the chicken to brown lightly. Add the harissa and the garlic, then the salt and spices and finally, after it's all been fried around a bit, the chicken stock. Bring to a boil and then slow to a very simmery simmer. Add the chickpeas and let everything just cook up together, about 15 minutes for lean chicken and about 35-40 minutes for meat on the bone. Add the tomato paste and mix it in (you can omit this step for meat on the bone as the sauce will thicken naturally), then twist the lemon into it and season with pepper before serving up.