September 1st, 2010
I have known salep all my life. I have had it in ice cream and in the eponymous winter drink which we used to buy on the street in Beirut after late nights out on the town, to have with croissants or ka’keh (sesame galette). Still, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I finally saw what salep looks like in its un-powdered form. I was walking through the bazaars of Safranbolu, in Turkey’s Black Sea region with my great friend, Nevin Halici, when I noticed lovely necklaces of dried translucent objects hanging outside several shops. I asked Nevin what they were and she said salep (dried orchis tubers that are ground into a fine powder which acts as a thickening agent). And inside the shop we entered, there was a very large jar of the salep in powdered form.
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Tags: Black Sea, Nevin Halici, orchis tubers, rare ingredients, safranbolu, sahlab, salep, turkey
Posted in Recipes, ingredients, travel | 18 Comments »
August 30th, 2010
Just back from the United Arab Emirates where I had a great time, seeing friends, eating delicious food and getting close with lady camels at a wonderful camel dairy farm where they produce the milk for the chocolates I wrote about in this post and where I finally tasted the milk properly — it is pretty delicious. Again, I was lucky to be with Jason Lowe who took the lovely picture above of me and my new best friends, feeding them perfect carrots imported from China. And what is interesting is that each camel has a different hump. I am now seriously considering the possibility of producing camel hump lardo, and all because of a comment by Jonathan Gold some time ago following my exciting camel hump adventure.
Tags: al nassmah chocolates, camel milk, camel milk chocolate, camel milk dairy, camelicious, camels, Dubai
Posted in travel | 9 Comments »
August 23rd, 2010
A French friend once told me that dancing was the vertical expression of horizontal intentions. I can’t dance. So, if I need to express such intentions, I have to resort to other means! But Tahiya Carioca sure can. And the way she expresses it is beyond sexy, and without being in the least bit vulgar. The more I watch her videos, the more I wonder why I ever thought she was. It must have been my silly French convent school in Beirut that made me seriously prejudiced against belly dance then. Too bad. I missed out on seeing her in real life when I could have.
Tags: Beirut, belly dance, convent schools, egypt, tahiya carioca
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
August 17th, 2010
Bessbuss greeting us from the window of her top room where she chops the parsley to keep the rest of her house clean.
I recently wrote a a short piece for the markets issue of Saveur on Souk el-Tanabel (souk of the lazy people) in Damascus where well-heeled women go to buy pre-prepared vegetables. A little like our supermarkets, except that it is a proper market with street stalls, lone farmers selling seasonal produce and shops of course.
The interesting thing about souk el-Tanabel is that the preparation is done by women, working in their own homes and each with her own speciality. One cores courgettes, another peels garlic, another prepares artichoke hearts, another chops parsley and so on. The shop owners send the vegetables over to the women in the evening. They work through the night and early in the morning then the same men who delivered return to pick up the prepared vegetables to have them in the shop for opening time.
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Tags: Bessbuss, chopping parsley, damascus, Souk el-Tanabel, syria, tabbuleh
Posted in herbs, ingredients, markets, travel | 30 Comments »
August 15th, 2010
Or to be more accurate in a pick up van on the street. I love these startling sights that are quite common throughout the Middle East. I was in Aleppo I think when I spotted this poor animal. As luck would have it, I was with Jason Lowe who doesn’t need introducing, and only he can make something so gruesome look so beautiful. I love this picture and it’s a perfect follow-up on the lamb testicles post to illustrate the quick passage from freshly slaughtered to the butcher’s counter. The sheep was about to be unloaded at a local butcher who was going to skin and butcher it.
Tags: Aleppo, butchers, Middle East, slaughtering animals
Posted in butchers, gruesome sights, travel | 4 Comments »
August 13th, 2010
Lamb testicles for sale in the souk in Damascus — these are a lot more veined than the norm; also it is not often that you find them hung like this. The butcher peels and discards the outer membrane before weighing and cutting them the way you want.
A few days ago, Serious Eats tweeted about yak testicles. I have never tried them but I love lamb testicles and have been eating them forever. Well, from when I could chew. They are considered a great delicacy in Lebanon and I find their soft, melting texture and subtle flavour irresistible. Of course, they need to be very fresh for that subtle, clean taste but this is not a problem in the Middle East where they slaughter lambs and sell the meat and offal the same day.
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Tags: lamb, Lebanon, serious eats, testicles, yak tecticles
Posted in fifth quarter, ingredients | 18 Comments »
August 10th, 2010
As you know, my friend Charles Perry guest posts here on a regular basis. When I recently asked him what he would like to write about, he suggested a post by a friend he had just met who’d sent him pictures from Azerbaijan together with a story about rose petals.
Now, I have a weakness for Azerbaijan because my nephew is married to a young woman from there and he invited the whole family to Baku for the wedding. It was a great trip, on a private plane chartered by my brother-in-law, which I expected to be luxurious but it turned out to be more like a charter flight on one of those cheap airlines. Still, the arrival into the VIP lounge, and the special treatment on the ground were fun.
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Tags: Azerbaijan, naturally coloured sugar, rose petal jam, rose petals, Seki, tea
Posted in guest post, ingredients, travel | 9 Comments »
August 8th, 2010
Which is great news! But the better news is that it is in the heart of Soho, right alongside the few remaining sex establishments. So, while I am shopping for great vegetables and fruit, delicious salame and cheese, seriously tasty tomatoes and many other excellent produce, I can observe the seedy life of those who run these places, and with a bit of luck, I can glimpse what type of men (or perhaps women) still go there in the age of free porn on the net.
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Tags: farmers markets, foodlovers Britain, Henrietta Green, London, Soho
Posted in markets, shopping | 10 Comments »
August 1st, 2010
Very soon it will be the month of Ramadan, when Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset, not letting even a drop of water go through their lips. After hard days’ fast come nights of feasting and socialising when people visit each other, bearing gifts and sweets. And if there is a sweet that symbolises this month in the Middle East, it is qatayef (pancakes similar to Scottish muffins but thinner).
You can have them plain, topped with qashtah (clotted cream), pinched half-closed to make them look like cones and drizzled with sugar syrup (in the fancy sweet shops they’ll be garnished with orange blossom jam). Or you can have them filled with cream, walnuts or unsalted cheese, then fried and dipped in sugar syrup. I love them fried, especially if I am having them at my friends, the aptly named Ramadan brothers, whose stall is at top of souk Madhat Pasha on Straight Street in Damascus.
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Tags: clotted cream, damascus, pancakes, qashtah, qatayef, Ramadan, Ramadan brothers, walnut filling
Posted in baking, street food, sweets, travel | 12 Comments »
