The Rebirth of Lebanon

View of the Mediterranean from Byblos, with Roman ruins in the forefront, followed by the recognisable heritage Lebanese home overlooking the water (source, The New York Times)

Though this entry is somewhat unrelated to food, it does not stray far from the general theme of this blog, which revolves around my Lebanon. As a phoenix is reborn from the ashes of its monumental fire, my Lebanon is getting its own rebirth. In 2009, The New York Times deservedly voted Beirut as the number one tourist destination in the world. The article mentioned the Four Seasons Hotel Beirut, Le Gray as the forces of change in Lebanon’s culinary scene. For traditional Lebanese, the mention went to Al Ajami restaurant and Hussein Hadid’s Kitchen.

More recently, Jbeil (Byblos) was the subject matter in an article in The New York Times as being the Cannes of the Middle East, in contrast to the saying Beirut is the Paris of the Middle East. I really enjoyed that article not the least because I actually grew up in Jbeil (and went to school in Monsif, if you must know), despite the focus being on one of my least favourite Lebanese trait, which is the exorbitant show of wealth. Having just returned from Lebanon this year, I can confirm the Jbeil is the place to be. The council has done wonders in creating a tasteful city, and the beaches are fantastic, though mostly privatised and almost unaffordable to locals. Jbeil imparts the visitor with a great sense of history and coupled with a unique tidy, civilised laid-backedness. It has everything Beirut doesn’t, and more. By more I mean a chicken shawarma from el Rock followed by a fruit cocktail from el Addoom. Oh my God!

The Jbeil article mentions the following restaurants:

Bab El Mina
Mother
Pierre & Friends
Locanda a la Granda (mentioned as the best restaurant in town)

Manakish – Lebanon’s Favourite Breakfast

Manoosheh b zaatar with tomatoes, mint and cucumber

It is difficult to think of a Lebanese breakfast that is more popular or loved than the manoosheh. Round flat discs of bread covered with zaatar (thyme, sumac and sesame seeds) mixed with olive oil and baked in the oven or on top of a saj. Manakish (مناقيش), the plural of manoosheh (منقوشه), are so prevalent in the Lebanese culture that every borough or village has one or more dedicated bakeries. They are also entrenched into our pop culture and are symbolic as being the food of the poor (along with falafel). The word itself means decorated or stamped, referring to how the dough is flattened using the tips of the fingers which leave a stamp-like decorative pattern. The manoosheh may be famous for being the Lebanese pizza, but despite its fame, there is little available literature that points in the direction of its origin, and nothing that gives us an idea of how long it has been present in Lebanese homes. Chef Ramzi, the Lebanese celebrity chef has a brief paragraph on the subject in his book “From the Heritage of Lebanon” (من تراث لبنان). The manoosheh, he suggests, is a recent addition to the Lebanese diet:

The manoosheh has only recently appeared in Lebanon, evolving to this day to become Lebanon’s most demanded breakfast. The main reasons for that are its ease and speed of preparation, its low price tag, it being tasty and its readiness to marry with a multitude of ingredients to produce a world of flavour… Each house wife would, upon returning from the fields, prepare a zaatar mix and distribute it on the saj loaves… All these variations fall under the category of manakish. This is considered a good example of the evolution of the Lebanese traditional village cuisine, in that it aligns itself to the needs and requirements of the modern consumer and adapting to them.
Chef Ramzi – From the Heritage of Lebanon 2002

The accompanying herbs and veggies are no less important

The paragraph above surely paints a picture, but, doesn’t really tell us much about the history of the manoosheh. I for one am a sceptic of the above claim of relative recency. Firstly, zaatar (thyme) is a wild herb that has always grown in the Lebanese mountains. Olive oil is presumed to have been first pressed by the Canaanites (Phoenicians) at around 4500 BC. Flat breads, leavened or unleavened also reach back to antiquity. In the tenth century, Ibn Sayyar Al-Warraq, in his Arab cookery book Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Cooking), includes six recipes for bread, baked in a tannur (the Arabic word for tandoor). So if by the tenth century, the Lebanese had access to thyme, olive oil and flat bread, it seems highly unlikely that these ingredients so destined to be together wandered the earth lonely for long.

To me, the manoosheh holds the same special place it does for every Lebanese. There is beauty in its simplicity, its aroma brings back childhood memories and the flavour of zaatar reminds me of home. The toppings can certainly vary: akkawi cheese, kishk (dried yoghurt and burghul), spinach, meat, eggs and qawarma, etc… But the original and best is zaatar. Eat it with loads of fresh mint, tomatoes and cucumber. To me, that’s the taste of Lebanon.

Manakish Recipe

Ingredients
5 cups strong pizza flour (if you can, otherwise, all purpose white flour would do)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 and 3/4 cups water
2 tspns salt
2 tspns sugar
1 tbspn yeast

Toppings
1/2 cup Zaatar mix (buy it from your Middle-Eastern suppliers) adding enough olive oil to make a slightly runny consistency. If it doesn’t have toasted sesame seeds, add them.

Method

In a large bowl, Mix all ingredients except for the water. Incorporate well. Make a well in the center and add the water. Knead the dough. It will be much stickier and softer than pizza dough, but it needs to hold together. If it doesn’t, keep kneading until it does. Keep aside to rise for an hour, covered with a wet cloth.

Heat the oven up to 220 C. Take some dough and spread it on a tray, using the tips of your fingers until it is the thickness of thin crust pizza. Top with the zaatar mix, again using your fingers to spread. Put the manoosheh in the oven for around 15 minutes. Remove when the bottom has cooked and become nice and golden.

Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce Recipe

Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce Recipe

Note: You can click here to see my evolutionary invention to produce awesome toum in 3 minutes. The article below is still worth a read so you gain an understanding of the toum making process.

My brother Fady eats garlic sauce spread on Lebanese bread all on its own. He says that with garlic, you gain your health but loose your friends. The consumption of garlic in Lebanon is, and historically has been in such copious quantities that the Lebanese can hardly claim any vampire of note. Where should I begin to explain what a pivotal role garlic plays in Lebanese cuisine? The relative of the onion has been consumed as a food and a medicine in the Mediterranean since the days of the pharaohs. It has been referred to in the Old Testament (Numbers 11:5) as one of the foods that were consumed in Egypt, alongside with melons, onions, cucumbers and leeks.. It is used in thousands of recipes and never a day goes by when it is not eaten. Mixed with lemon juice and olive oil, it is our most used salad dressing and meat or chicken marinade.

The Lebanese word for garlic is toum, which is also how we refer to the fluffy white garlic sauce that is served in restaurants with roast chicken, chicken shawarma and shish tawook (chicken skewers). Its affinity with chicken is therefore evident, but it also goes beautifully with lamb, beef and goat meat. Making toum is actually easy, but you need a food processor, and lots of patience. Once you make this sauce, you might get addicted, so beware.

Before I get into the recipe, I want to give you a few pointers:

1. Always use a neutral oil like canola or vegetable oil, the sauce will taste lighter and the texture will be fluffier than if you use olive oil
2. The idea is to create an emulsion with the oil, garlic and lemon juice
3. Be patient. It will take around 10 minutes with a food processor to get a finished product. Rushing will cause the sauce to split
4. Use good quality fresh garlic and peel it yourself. Don’t buy already peeled garlic since it has been refrigerated
5. The Australian market is flooded with Chinese garlic, which is of a lesser quality, so try to avoid it. Use Mexican garlic, or most preferably Australian garlic
6. Avoid bulbs with green growth, and choose tight bulbs
7. Make sure all your equipment is free of any traces of water, which could make the sauce split

Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce Recipe

how the garlic sauce should look like as it churns through the food processor

Ingredients
4 cups of neutral oil, canola or vegetable oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup peeled whole garlic cloves (not crushed)
1 heaped tbsp salt

1. Put salt and garlic cloves in food processor and pulse. Scrape the sides a couple of times and pulse some more, until the garlic is nicely even in chunk size
2. Turn on the food processor and in a very very thin stream, add 1/2 cup oil very gradually. Adding too much oil too soon will split the sauce
3. Add 2 teaspoons lemon juice, also gradually, allowing them to incorporate properly
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all your ingredients have been used up. Do NOT exceed the oil and lemon juice quantities in each repetition
5. After (or during) the 2nd addition of oil, you will notice the emulsion take place. If your sauce doesn’t split, then you’ve done well and added the oil in the required slow manner. You can add any left over lemon juice at the end, but add it slowly as the food processor churns through. If the sauce splits, just stop because it’s ruined. Abort the mission, add an egg white and make aioli instead

Feed the Hommous – Chickpeas, the Versatile Bean

The chickpea plant, beautiful citrusy pods holding the bean

OK. So let’s set a few things straight here. Hommous (also spelled hummus or hommos) , is not a dish, and under no circumstance should it be an ingredient of a kebab. In fact, hommous is the Lebanese and Arabic word for chickpeas. The chickpea dip known the world over is what we the Lebanese call hommous b tahini. This name tells us that the chickpea dish is made with tahini. Chickpeas are eaten fresh (green) or dried (soaked and boiled). You can also buy the canned variety, but it is much cheaper and tastier if you soak and then boil them yourself. On its own, the chickpea is quite bland, but its merit comes from its ability to carry flavours and also from its texture. This texture works perfectly when blended with another Lebanese staple, tahini.

Baleelah: boiled chickpeas, aioli (yes we have that too), cumin and pine nuts, amazing!

Now tahini holds another point of contention. The product is the same whether it is spelled tahini or tahina. The word tahini itself denotes something that has been crushed, in this case, sesame seeds. The process is similar to making peanut butter, but the sesame seeds themselves are more oily and fragrant than peanuts, and crushing them results in a paste that is essential to the Lebanese cuisine, where it is used in more ways than you can imagine.

Fatteh: boiled chickpeas, garlic, yoghurt, olive oil, pine nuts on toasted Lebanese bread

But back to chickpeas, having just returned from Lebanon, I was reminded of the versatility of the hommous bean itself and the importance it holds in our cuisine. During the trip, I had more than 10 dishes where chickpeas were a central ingredient, and at least 4 where they were pretty much the only ingredient other than the sauce and spices used alongside. I remembered how we used to buy bunches of green (fresh) chickpeas and spend hours chatting, shelling and eating. Somewhat like peas, a good green chickpea should be had within hours of being picked, otherwise it gets chalky. Of all the great recipes for chickpeas, I thought you would most benefit from making the following dish.

Hommous b Tahini

Hommous b Tahini (Chickpeas in Tahini Sauce) Recipe

The most common chickpea dish known to man (Indian curries aside), hummous b tahini is often murdered at the hands of chefs and home cooks alike. It is at its finest when it is super smooth, perfectly balanced with tahini and lemon juice, and with just enough garlic. A Lebanese mother would never measure the ingredients and give out a recipe, as it is made with constant tasting of the ingredients to ensure the right balance is achieved. Here is an “algorithm” for making hommous b tahini, with tips to ensure the right consistency:

1- Soak chickpeas overnight with a spoon or two of sodium bicarbonate
2- Boil the hell out of the chickpeas. You want to be able to turn it into mush by simply pressing on the grain between your index and thumb
3- Drain but keep the cooking liquid as you will need it
4- Put in a food processor with no other liquid and blend.
5- If the food processor is not blending properly, add tiny amounts of cooking water, and I mean by the tablespoon just to get it going
6- Keep blending until very smooth. If you put too much liquid, it will not get smooth enough, and remain yucky and grainy
7- Add garlic, salt and lemon juice, blend again and adjust to taste.
8- Add tahini paste (a bit at a time), blend and taste.
9- Tahini will make the dip seize up, so add a bit of cooking liquid (or lemon juice if it needs it) to loosen it all up, but not too much. It should be be thick and creamy, not liquidy in any way. Have a look at how it holds its grooves in the picture above.
10- Adjust garlic, salt and lemon juice, plate up, make a sort of well in the middle and fill it with good olive oil! Huzzah!

Shawarma – The real kebab

shawarma, the Lebanese kebab

Can I have barbeque sauce, extra cheese and tabbouli with that? Certainly not!
Imagine the horror upon my first encounter with the Aussie kebab! I don’t want to dig deep and talk too much about frozen reconstituted meat made from God knows what, impersonating as a poor excuse for a kebab. In fact, I want to avoid that all together. This quick post is about shawarma, the real kebab, and mainly about what goes with it.

the perfect kebab, shawarma only needs tahini, parsley, sumac rubbed onions and tomatoes

Making shawarma is simple. Just marinate some lamb in red wine vinegar, oil, salt (yes), all spice, cinnamon, black pepper and a bit of cumin. Wait for a day or two, then you can oven roast or pan fry the meat. But how do you eat it? The answer is simple, and so it should be, as the flavour of the meat needs to shine through, along with a cleansing freshness that comes from only 4 other ingredients: finely chopped parsley, onions rubbed with sumac, tomatoes and a slightly thin tahini sauce (tahini, garlic, water, lemon juice and salt, whizzed up in a food processor, made to taste). That’s all it needs. Try this combination, and you will never turn back. And please, no cheese.

Sweet Falafel? Why not?

What you see above may horrify and shock you, but yet, a part of you will be tempted to try these. I had the idea in a flash of brilliance. You see, to us Lebanese, tahini is a major major part of our diet. We make hommos and baba ghannouj with it, and we put it on top of fried fish, shawarma (Lebanese kebab, much better than the Turkish version, obviously) and falafels. We also use it in a limited way in sweets. We mix it with carob mollasses to make a nice sweet dip which we simply eat with bread, and we also butter cake tins with it, such as in sfouf, a yellow cake flavoured with tumeric. The Greeks also use tahini in their own way and they make tahinopita, a special pie made for Lent. The ingredient is without doubt Lebanese, or at least from our side of the med. The word itself signifies something that has been ground up, in this case sesame, which are ground as they are to produce tahini. Nothing else is used, pure sesame.

Now my idea as it ended up resulted in a very simple yet tasty dish, which at first glance looks very similar to falafels, but tastes very different. The falafel disks are made from white bread, tahini, salt and sugar, mixed with fennel seeds, with a small bit of water to help it come along. The mixture needs to be strong and not too sticky. As it is already edible, you need to taste it to make sure you have the right balance.
As a guidline:
4 large slices of white bread (not Lebanese bread)
3/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 to 1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fennel seeds

Mix all ingredients except fennel seeds in blender/food processor. Work into a nice not too sticky paste, add the fennel seeds and deep fry in small batches. Make sure the oil is not too hot as you want the inside to cook a bit as well. These fellas will brown very quickly, so remove when nice and golden.

My initial idea was to make a sweet tahini sauce, which is what you see in the photo. I made that by mixing tahini, lemon juice, icing sugar, and water. You need lots of lemon juice and sugar. This completes the illusion that you are serving falafel, but this is also tasty with a simple syrup of sugar and lemon juice, with lots of lemon juice.

Apologies on the not too clear directions, but this is a first attempt. Try it, and taste the paste as you go along and it will not go wrong. A cheat’s recipe for dessert, and makes for interesting conversation!

Orange and Blossom Cordial

Homemade cordial calls back to my childhood, and mom made the best. Dad would come back with boxes full of oranges, which he would have picked up from the local growers, and mom, knowing that there was no way we would get through them, would start the “mooneh”. The word mooneh translates to “supplies”, but is most usually used to indicate the larder, or the winter store with pickles, jams and of course cordials. My brother Fady was a big fan of mom’s thirst quenching cordial, of which she kept several bottles in the kitchen pantry. I remember walking into the kitchen and seeing Fady pull out a bottle from the pantry, pour some in a glass, and add some water straight from the tap, and in his haste, he downed it all without stirring. Before I could say anything, Fady spat out the lot. Those of you who know Fady, know he is a bit like Emile, the gluttonous brother from Ratatouille. Fady had taken a bottle of our own cold pressed, unfiltered olive oil and downed the contents. I have not let him forget that story.

This weekend we went for an Easter visit to Lainy’s parents, who own a fantastic plot of land in Picton, NSW. I’ve tried to grow some vegetable there before, but our visits were not frequent enough, and the land itself needed some serious work, so the yield was low. There are, however, some old fruitful trees that are in desperate need of being taken care of. One of which is a loquat tree (my favourite) which self seeded in the same month I met Lainy, and we take that as a “sign”. Another one is a sorry looking orange tree, around a meter and a half tall, but with fantastic yield. My in-laws are not big fans of this tree, and I have difficulty convincing them that the oranges should be eaten, rather than let go to waste. So I picked some oranges and brought them home with me. I also picked some of the orange blossoms in order to infuse them in my cordial.

orange blossoms from Picton

So once I got home, I cordially recruited Ludwig’s help (as he had made the last batch of lime cordial). The recipe could not be any simpler than this:

Ingredients
4 cups of orange juice
8 cups of boiling water
10 orange blossoms
1.5 kg of sugar (yep!)
1 tsp citric acid (from the supermarket)
The rind of 3 lemons

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water, infuse the lemon rind and the orange blossoms for 10 minutes. Add the orange juice and citric acid and stir, making sure all the sugar has dissolved. It’s now ready to go, so add some water as desired, and plenty of ice! And it tastes so good, especially with the orange blossoms having infused in there. Very Lebanese!

The finished product, orange and blossom cordial

Lebanese Breakfast

I remember breakfasts of Labneh, Zaatar, mint, tomato and cucumber with fresh, paper thin markouk bread. On weekends, when time was a luxury we could afford, it would be kishk and qawarma hiding full cloves of garlic in creamy whiteness speckled with shallow fried pine nuts. We burnt our tongues in impatience and never learned to wait. Eggs with sumac were fluffy and crunchy, slowly fried with olive oil in pottery and devoured within seconds with farm fresh home made goat’s milk yoghurt. Every once in a while, mom would send dad down to the baker’s with a variety of containers to be made into Lebanese pizzas and pies. The one for manakish would be full of her special zaatar mix – hand picked mountain thyme, dried and mixed with freshly roasted sesame seeds, sumac and of course, olive oil from our decades old olive grove. Another would have spinach and wild silver beet mixed with onions and used to fill the triangular Fattayer b’Sbenekh w Selek. Then there was Lahm b’Ajeen, mutton and beef mince mixed with onions, tomatoes, pine nuts, pomegranate molasses and spices served piping hot on top of the crispy golden brown pastry. A squeeze of lemon juice was all it needed to become the perfect meat pie. Let’s not get into an argument here.

Dad would drive on missions in search of the freshest produce. On his way back home, he would beep the horn, sending a special message that got us on to our feet and out to greet him. The three boys would help dad carry boxes full of the freshest produce upstairs where mom would complain. On a good day. electricity was only available for two or three hours if we were lucky, and that meant that produce needed to be bought and consumed very quickly. But Dad had a problem. Buying a kilo or less of anything was a strange concept he never embraced; and so mom got busy cooking three or four meals at a time, preserving what she could and handing out the rest to the neighbours, who were all too keen to repay the favour and offload their own husbands’ overzealous shopping habits, undermining mom’s evacuation efforts.

Over the next few posts, I want to cover many of the Lebanese breakfast foods we eat. I will aim to recreate the recipes using high quality raw ingredients sourced locally from Sydney wherever possible . Wish me luck.

(grapes from my father’s garden)