In a Jar of Tomato Paste

I have a hazy recollection of my early days in Lebanon. I’m not sure if it’s Alzheimer’s, the human condition or just suppressed memory, but the first 21 years of my life are pieces of a puzzle that stray in and out of mind. I grew up during the height of the Lebanese war. My family and I were driven out of our home on my fifth birthday. I don’t remember that day. I do remember that it was difficult for us to find a place to stay. People north of Beirut were hesitant about providing rent to the southern “migrants” – they didn’t trust that we wouldn’t overstay our welcome. For months, our family of 6 spent a great deal of time in dad’s ’78 Mercedes, moving between hotels and the homes of friends and relatives. We eventually found a 2 bedroom unit in Mastita. We lived there for 14 years, the owners of the unit becoming part of our extended family. I have a clear memory of when a large amount of sand was delivered to the neighbourhood. We used it to fill up large hessian bags with which we secured the bottom floor of the building to protect us from a direct hit, stray bullets or shrapnel. When the bombing got seriously close, all the residents would rush down to the sand fortress for shelter until things cooled off. For a kid like me, it was as close as I got to being on a camping trip – a whole lot of fun. I didn’t realise the extent of the danger I was in. Sometimes, I’d be too sleepy and lazy to even bother getting out of bed. Dad would have to carry me to the bomb shelter on his shoulders. Shortly after the war slowed down and the bombing stopped, the protective sand bags collapsed under their own weight. Talk about a false sense of security.

During those days, fresh food was hard to come by. There was no electricity and so no refrigeration. Despite the fact we were living in the 20th century, our way of life in many aspects was more like the era that had just passed. Women would gather around the saj in large groups when a shipment of flour came in. They would bake markouk bread for the whole neighbourhood. We were somewhat luckier than most in that Dad’s job took him travelling around the region. He would visit small farms on his way and purchase as much fresh produce as he could get his hands on. Mom would then need to preserve his findings. Fruit became jam or cordial, milk became yoghurt, kishk or labne, and vegetables were pickled or sundried. I never knew how good mom’s tomato paste was until I moved to Sydney. Fresh, sweet Lebanese tomatoes boiled to a smooth paste that was further dried in the heat of the Lebanese summer sun. This went into anything from marinades, pasta sauces, soups and stews. Those jars full of paste would see us through the year. In the way these jars preserved the memory of a summer tomato, sun-kissed and ripe, my mother’s efforts are preserved in my memory more than any other from back then. Seeing a jar of homemade tomato paste reminds me of my childhood, of my mother and father, my brothers and sister and of our life together. Isn’t it strange? I really miss those days.

Last week, my friend Kristie brought over 10 kilos of organic tomatoes. I used 5 kilos and they turned into a single jar of tomato paste. The others were eaten fresh. This paste will keep for a year, and I will use it during the winter time. Next year, my daughter might even have some in a soup. She’ll get to know how tomatoes from her first summer tasted like. The memory and flavour of that summer is preserved in a little glass jar, waiting patiently for her.

Freedom is a State of Me, Myself and Mine – Samke Harra Recipe

Have you ever yearned for freedom? Not the Count of Monte Cristo, I’m free and hell bound kind of freedom, nor the Nelson Mandela, Rebirth of Hope kind either. I’m talking about a freedom of a less significant kind. A silly, wasteful, icantreallybebothered one. You know, the kind where nothing stops you from sitting there looking at your toes for 3 days. Well, 5 weeks ago I handed in my resignation. This Monday was my first day as a free, unemployed man, and I have to tell you, so far, my toes look great!

Some time ago, I decided I need a short career break; a month or two where I don’t have to walk into an office. Not that I hated my job or the people who work there; I actually enjoyed both. I love .Net development as much as your next geek does, and I also consider at least half of my (old) team as good friends (love you guys). But I just needed a break, some time for myself. To do some travelling. To sleep in when I felt like it. To get my car serviced. To take my 5 month old daughter to her swimming lessons on a Wednesday – she’s about to start crawling by the way, God help us. Let’s face it, sometimes, you just need a change -  I needed mine and now it’s here. Though not as redeeming as escaping Shawshank and not as poignant as William Wallace’s great moment, my freedom somehow feels just as important.

Yes, you’re right, I am worried about income. Somehow, I had never associated my work with the paycheck I got. Money seemed incidental to employment, appearing in my bank account as matter of monthly habit, though now I know better. But before the realities of a diminishing bank account start hitting hard, it’s time to celebrate. Samkeh harra, or chilli fish, is one of Lebanon’s celebratory dishes and one of only a handful of fish dishes to ever come out of Lebanon. Think rich, fatty fish (salmon in this case), roasted until just done, smothered with tahini and covered with one of the simplest and best flavour combinations to ever join forces – fresh coriander, roast walnuts and almonds, lemon juice, onions, chilli and olive oil. This is a dish worthy of its own celebration, but is also perfect as one to mark my achievement. On Sunday, I sat and ate with the sun on my shoulders and felt like a free man.

Do you need a career break, or have you taken one already? Share your story and your celebration dish by leaving a comment.

Samke Harra – Chilli Fish Recipe

Salmon: 4 kilo salmon, skin scored, rubbed with salt, pepper and olive oil, covered with aluminium foil at 200c and baked until done (1 hour approx)

Tahini sauce: Mix tahini (1.5 cups), juice of 1 lemon, salt, a crushed garlic clove and add enough water until you have a thick homogenous sauce. Adjust flavours to taste

The herb and nut layer

• 1 cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 cup roasted walnuts, roughly chopped
• 1 cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped
• 1/2 small onion, finely diced
• Juice of half a lemon
• 4 tabelspoons of olive oil
• Chilli, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

• Mix the herb and nut layer’s ingredients and set aside for 10 minutes
• Remove the skin from the fish, but keep it whole
• Spread some of the tahini on the top of the fish to cover the side completely
• Spread the herbs and nuts to completely cover the tahini
• Serve with a sense of freedom and a beer

The Perfect Baba Ghanouj Recipe

The Perfect Baba Ghanouj Recipe

To reach the goal of baba ghanouj perfection
For the eggplant fruit you must have affection
This Lebanese dip is destined to be great
So don’t settle for something second rate
Start off with fruit that are heavy and shiny
While not too big and not too tiny
Pierce holes in the skin so as not to explode
While preparing them as we are told
These unnecessary explosions during preparation
Give good Middle Easterners a bad reputation

To cook them you’ll need a charcoal barbecue
For neither gas nor heat beads will do
If you wish to get that authentic flavour
Think charcoal an ingredient you should learn to savour
The eggplants must grill, their skins must burn
So that deep, rich smokiness they truly earn
When they give up their form, go limp and sag
Put them in a bowl covered with a plastic bag
They’ll continue to soften, the smokiness will infuse
Into the flesh until the heat would diffuse
Then take them out, peal and drain them well
Do not rinse with water as it will break the spell
Those small specks of black are a desirable thing
For the story of charcoal they will loudly sing

Once well drained and cool, you’re ready to proceed
Throw the eggplants into a bowl, cover with sesame seed
That has been pressed into tahini. It’s true Lebanese
Tahini is best, so only use that please
Two tablespoons per medium fruit you’ll require
And the juice of half a lemon to give some fire
But remember that lemon juice is only there
To compliment the creaminess of the tahini affair
The taste of lemon juice should not be intrusive
Its existence must remain elusive
Crush a bit of garlic with a teaspoon of salt
Before you use too much, you really must halt
In the same way the lemon’s used discretely
The garlic’s existence should almost completely
Be hidden, it’s there just to balance the fruit
A heavy hand and garlic turns into a brute

It’s really that simple, needing no herb nor spice
But here’s my most important piece of advice
Mix only with a fork and not a blender
For machines destroy the textural splendor
Season to taste, adjust as you wish
And there you have it, the perfect dish

China and the Fat Lebanese – Rozz a’ Djej

I hate the Chinese and how clever they are. Fried rice. Bastards. For centuries, Lebanese mothers have been force-feeding their children all the rice cooked for the meal in fear of it going stale. While the Lebanese grew fat with gavage, the Chinese ate reasonably sized meals, saving the rice for the day after. Stale rice is a necessary backbone of fried rice, and when done well, it is pure joy.

There it was, a bowl of stale, plainly cooked basmati, flavoured with Iranian saffron; sitting in the fridge, waiting to be eaten with a dollop of yoghurt – might sound good to you, but in reality, it’s more boring than you imagine. Rice doesn’t survive a nuclear reheating as well as one would hope. Take a lesson from the Chinese. A bit of onion and garlic, a can of chickpeas and some beef mince, caramalised in a wok. A Lebanese teaspoon or two of each cumin and cinnamon, and a touch of chilli – toss the rice in, coat it well. Shred some poached chicken breast and scatter on top with some fried almonds; a stir-fry worthy of an emperor. Rozz a’ djej (rice with chicken), this Chinese remake of the Lebanese classic is still best eaten with a fork.

Disasters and Adventures with Silver Beet

silver beet stalks with tahini

I’m guilty of murder. Okay, not actual murder, more a culinary crime. You know what it’s like. You get an idea for a recipe and in your head it sounds brilliant. But when you execute your plan, the end result is so bloody awful that you feel you may get jail time for your misdeeds. Has this ever happened to you?

Well, it happens to me, and quite often. Last week, for example, I attempted a new approach to silver beet rolls. I had it all planned out. The stuffing would be burghul flavoured with lemon olive oil, raisins and pine nuts. The rolls would be piled and dolloped with thick ribbons of creamy labna. I imagined the velvety textures contrasting with the crisp bite of the roasted pine nuts. I imagined the balance of flavours, sweet, sour, earthy and the heady aroma of lemon and spice. I subsequently imagined myself at a ceremony where Lebanese president Michael Suleiman was granting me the Order of the Cedar for my contribution to and innovation in Lebanese cuisine. The crowd was cheering, and I was shaking the congratulatory hands of my numerous fans.

Unfortunately, the creation was a total disaster. No cheering crowd for me. I was devastated. I wanted to silver beet myself silly.

One consoling factor was that I was left with many silver beet stalks. To avoid further disasters, I resorted to the fool proof Lebanese classic, silver beet stalks in tahini. Tahini is the Lebanese culinary cure-all. If disaster befalls the Lebanese, we reach for tahini. Let me see; we’ve got chickpeas with tahini, eggplants with tahini, snails with tahini, fish with tahini, falafel with tahini, shawarma with tahini, molasses with tahini, kibbeh with tahini, eggs with tahini, cake with tahini. And of course, silver beet stalks with tahini.

This is a super easy dish and is a prime example of how necessity is truly the mother of invention. After making silver beet rolls stuffed with rice, the Lebanese cook is left with a large stack of silver beet stalks. Waste is avoided. The default setting of “smother the whole thing with tahini sauce” is applied. The end result is delicious.

So don’t underestimate this dish because of its simplicity. It really is wonderful, and its creator should have been bestowed the Order of the Cedar. To prepare, cut the cleaned stalks into squares, boil or steam them until just tender and mix into tahini sauce (tahini, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and some water for thinning). Sprinkle with roasted or fried pine nuts, drizzle a bit of olive oil and enjoy a disaster free dish.

Share your kitchen disasters. Leave a comment and tell me how horribly you have failed.

Kibbeh with Star Anise Caramelised Onions

You’ve gotta love it when an idea comes together. It’s even better when it’s an idea so simple that it seems crazy that no one has already thought of it.

I once read the following formula:
Modern Art = I could have done that + Yeah, but you didn’t

I’m not saying I’m a modern culinary artist in any way, but there’s a pleasure I find in invention, and I sense joy when I manage to create something new, simple and delicious.

This is my version of kibbeh, and to be honest, it’s bloody awesome. Kibbeh is a family of dishes considered as Lebanon’s national culinary emblem where the common factor is that burghul, spices and onions are mixed with a binding agent. This binding agent could be anything but most commonly you’d see minced lamb or goat, pumpkin or lentils.

The two most famous incarnations of kibbeh are nayyeh and kbeb (or mikliyyeh). Nayyeh is the raw version, a silken beauty doused with olive oil and eaten with loads of fresh mint and raw onions. Kbeb are the torpedo shaped kibbeh, hollow but filled with fried mince, onions and pine nuts and then deep-fried. Imagine how good that tastes.

My kibbeh is derived from the latter, and it simply aims to bring out the best aspects of the kbeb: a crisp exterior, a generous filling of the sweetest, star anise caramelised onions and an abundance of fried pine nuts. It’s kibbeh on steroids, with all the flavours amplified ten-fold. This goes down on my list of top 10 favourites. You’ve got to try it!

Kibbeh Recipe

Ingredients

Shell

• 0.5 kilo finely minced lamb, beef or goat meat (twice minced)
• 180 grams fine burghul
• 1 pureed or finely grated onion
• 2 tsp finely ground black pepper
• salt – use your judgement

Filling

• 6 large onions, sliced
• 4 star anise, in a muslin bag
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup fried pine nuts

Method

• In a frying pan, add all the filling ingredients except pine nuts and caramalise on a low heat. It will take around 45 minutes. Stir occasionally and make sure the onions don’t burn
• Remove from heat and add pine nuts
• Mix all the shell ingredients
• Flatten some of the shell mix between your palms until it’s evenly thin
• Use a cup you like the shape of and line it with the meat.
• Use the method outlined in the photo below (from my pumpkin kibbeh post) for a fully manual kibbeh experience, or rill the meat with filling and cover the bottom with another piece of flattened shell, ensuring the bottom adheres to the rest of the kibbeh.
• Deep fry until golden

Foraging Sydney – Mulberry Cordial

There’s this Lebanese proverb, “only free vinegar is sweeter than honey”. It’s basically the cheapo Lebanese way of saying that the best things in life are free. For me, the old adage rings truest in reference to food, and I get a good dose of life’s free stuff by foraging. I’ve spoken about this before so there’s no point regurgitating. There is so much food, and I try my best to get out there and grab my share. Over the years, I’ve made orange and blossom cordial from a neglected shrub, harvested snails for spaghetti, made loquat jelly from a randomly self-seeded tree, collected wild dandelions for hindbeh from a sidewalk, found chestnuts in abundance in Armidale, picked a dozen different types of fruit, written poetry and made blackberry jam in Germany for God’s sake! I’m not even counting all other non-documented foraging expeditions I’ve enjoyed. Foraging and cooking from what I’ve collected is without doubt the source of my most rewarding food memories.

For some reason, foraging is not Sydney’s favourite pastime. You can blame it on the lack of fruit trees and forage-worthy wild food as much as you’d like, but you know that it would be untrue. Sure, I agree that Sydney’s landscape is dominated by bluegums, Port Jackson figs, Moreton Bay figs, bottle brushes and banksias, and they don’t seem the ideal choice for good eating; but there is also so much food out there ripe for the picking. It could be a tree heavy with mandarins forgotten in your neighbour’s backyard waiting for you to visit. Maybe it’s a generous olive tree studded with fruit, sitting there lonely on a dead end street; or perhaps two young bulbs of wild fennel making out discretely in the park – it is good, abundant and free food, but no one will bother harvesting it. Sydneysiders just don’t forage.

Last Sunday I visited Laurice, a childhood friend of my mother’s from back when they both lived in the south of Lebanon in the tiny, remote farming village of Jarmaq. From the age of seven, Laurice and mom would walk every day for two hours – rain, hail or shine – to get to school, and then two hours back. As you could imagine, the girls became inseparable; but life happened and Laurice migrated to Australia when she was around 18 and lost contact with my mother for 40 years. When I drove mom to Laurice’s in 2006 for their first reunion, they stood facing each other, crying, speechless for what felt like a lifetime. In a daze of decades, they mentally pulled away the lines and creases from their estranged friend’s face until, once more, they saw each other, two young children running down one of Jarmaq’s wheat fields, late for school. They hugged and sobbed for the remainder of the visit.

Since that day, Laurice has become like a mother to me, and she treats me like a son. I tease her as much as I possibly can and raid her fridge constantly (indoor foraging, another great hobby). She has a fig tree that produces some of Sydney’s sweetest fruit, and on Sunday I found out that she also has a mulberry tree, with berries so ripe they dropped down from their own weight. I gave her a hard time about it and she gave me some lame excuse – something about being diabetic and 1.4m tall. She handed me a bucket and sent me off to pick mulberries to my heart’s content and told me I could take them home. I gorged myself on these little wonders while I picked them, and ate more when I got home, but realised that I needed to preserve them somehow because there was no way I was going to get through a kilo of mulberries before they went past their prime.

A traditional Lebanese drink is mulberry cordial. You see it served on hot summer days, in weddings, funerals and baptisms. Our love for the mulberry tree is unparalleled; at the turn of the century, it was the tree that fuelled our local economy and allowed the Lebanese to create an industrious silk trade to satisfy the French’s demand for fine fabrics. Silk worms favoured mulberry trees and so Lebanon went crazy with mulberry plantations which fed the silk worms and also fattened our sheep for qawarma, Lebanese lamb confit.

But back to the cordial, making it is easy and black mulberries are ideal – they have the right balance of sweet and sour; but I had to make do with pink mulberries. The end result turned out just fine, but in hindsight, I should have doubled the amount of citric acid. Use a mouli to juice the berries and for every cup of juice, use 2 cups of sugar. Stick the mixture in a pot and heat to dissolve the sugar. Before it gets too hot, add citric acid to taste. You want it sweet but sharp. Bring the mixture to 102 degrees Celsius, skim any froth and pour into a clean bottle. Close the bottle when the mixture is tepid. Serve diluted with water, on ice. The cordial keeps well at room temperature, but once the bottle is opened, store it in the fridge. For some excellent photos of the whole process and how it’s done in Lebanon, see Bethany’s fantastic post.

Do you forage? Leave a comment and let us know, where and what, or why not.

Heartache & Meat Pies – Lahm b’ Ajeen Recipe

I must have been around 17 years old the first time I witnessed earnest, all-covering snow as it dropped lightly but persistently to create a carpet of whiteness over red-tiled roofs. We were at the ski village of Faraya, and I, with my friends, was there to spend New Year’s Eve. There must have been around twenty of us sardined into a room that could hardly sleep five. We didn’t mind. It was a night of celebration, and there was no intention of sleeping. And besides, how could I have slept when she was there, looking as beautiful as only she could? Ah yes. There she stood, with skin that outmatched the whiteness of the freshly fallen snow and hair darker than the charcoal that later glowed to keep us warm. Miss Faraya hardly noticed me but as far as I was concerned, that room only contained her – and the bottles of local red wine; so while she continued, oblivious of my presence, I paused and Château Kefraya and I became the best of friends.

I don’t remember what happened. I have these intoxicated flashbacks of myself after midnight, walking back from the center square alongside thousands of party people. How I got there, I don’t know, but every person I encountered was repeating the same phrase: baddna n’nem (we want to sleep). Baddna n’nem? What? Why? I woke up with a headache so titanic it had created its own gravitational pull, and in its orbit was complete confusion. It was only when I heard someone on the phone wishing a loved one a “Bonne Année” (French for Happy New Year) that I realised that all the people I had met during my hazy, drunken stroll weren’t kindly informing me that they wanted to sleep, but were giving me their wishes for the new year. “Bonne Année” not “baddna n’nem”. This total lack of recall confirmed my doubts. The previous night had been a disaster.

Angry with myself, Mr Château Kefraya (who was no longer a friend of mine) and the French-speaking Lebanese, I convinced my mate who had the car that we needed to return to Jbeil (Byblos). Escape is the easiest way to avoid shame, you can trust me on that one. We were starving and dehydrated but agreed to wait until we reached a well-known bakery that made lahm b’ ajeen. The bakery’s claim to fame was not the quality of its product but rather the character of its owner. We were told that when he served his lahm b’ ajeen, he would theatrically grab a lemon, slice it down the middle with a mighty strike of his butcher’s knife, toss the lemon onto the lahm b’ ajeen and offer it to the customer with the command: hrisa (destroy it)! The rumours proved true, and so it was that we witnessed a Lebanese legend in full-swing. The comedy temporarily soothed my aching brain and uplifted my spirit, and that lahm b ajeen, though not the best I’ve had, remains the most memorable. Maybe because I had suppressed around 24 hours of prior calamity.

Well, you may have guessed it, but thankfully, Miss Faraya and I never ended up together. I have since rekindled my relationship with red wine after a period of enmity while lahm b’ ajeen and I have never lost touch, remaining in close contact. Lahm b’ ajeen is a Middle-Eastern/Levantine pizza of sorts: a piece of flattened dough, usually with a hint of sweetness from sugar, covered with a mixture of hand-minced lamb shoulder, diced tomatoes and onions, salt and pepper and baked in a hot oven. When the sides are a crisp, golden brown, lahm b’ ajeen becomes one of the miracles of Lebanese food that needs to be eaten straight away as it comes out of the oven. Only then does it posses the right crunch, moisture, heat and aroma. A moment in time that needs to be given full attention and respect. Sharp and sweet drizzles of pomegranate molasses, dollops of creamy yoghurt, sprinklings of dried chilli or simply a squeeze of lemon juice: these are all suitable toppings, but the end aim is one. Seek a lahm b’ ajeen and destroy it!

Lahm b’ Ajeen Recipe

Make the topping by mixing 0.5 kilos of finely minced lamb shoulder, 1 large medium diced onion, 4 tomatoes (I used oxheart because of their dry texture), salt and pepper. Using your chef’s knife, mix the ingredients thoroughly using a chopping motion. Add a few handfuls of pine nuts on top.

Make some dough as you saw in my manakish recipe, but add 2 more tbsp sugar and use olive oil instead of vegetable oil. Let it rise and then make the pizzas. Add the topping to the dough and bake on the highest heat possible, until gold and crisp.