Foul (Middle Eastern Fava Bean's Breakfast)

Good morning! (Good noon?)
I made this last week and have been meaning to post it, but got swamped with work.

So this a mix of the Syrian and Jordanian way to do this dish. Enjoy :-)

Ingredients:

• 1 can fava beans
• 1 medium tomato
• 3 tbsps. olive oil (or as needed)
• 1 lemon
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 2 stalks green onion
• Parsley (granish)

1. Open the fava bean can and place contents in a small pot. Cook on medium heat until soft.
2. While the fava beans cook cut up the green onions, the tomato, and the garlic clove.  Place in medium bowl. -->
3. Once the fava beans are ready you are going to need to mash them. Make sure the liquid level is not too high. You want them to have a smooth consistency, not too runny. I usually just mash it in the pot. 
4. Add fava beans to the bowl. Add olive oil and lemon juice. Mix everything. It is kind of hard to describe, but you can look at the picture below to see the consistency. Add salt to taste.
5. Add chopped parsley to garnish.
6. Add additional olive oil or lemon juice to taste.

I know this recipe was slightly confusing, so if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!

Baklwa (Baklava) Recipe

A week or so was Eid, which is a Muslim holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is a month in which Muslims fast from sunrise until sunset.
So for Eid I decided to make baklava for my family.
This was the first time I made this recipe and was kind of scared, but it turned out to pretty good!

Ingredients:

• 1 package phyllo dough
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 lb. ground walnuts
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, melt as needed
• syrup

So I used a 9X13 glass pan. The width of the phyllo dough fit into the length of the pan. So what happened was you had to fold over some of the dough into the pan. This makes it a bit thicker. If you don't want it puffy like mine, use a bigger pan.

Directions

1. Thaw phyllo dough. It takes a couple of hours to really thaw.
2. Mix ground walnuts, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
3. Melt 1/4 cup butter.
4. Butter the pan before you start using it. Add a layer of dough. See how it hangs over the side? And add butter. I used this brush I have.

5. Fold over the other side of the dough.

6. Keep brushing with butter. Add 6 or so layers. Also, you will want to alternate which side you put the dough on. You want to put it all the way to the left onetime, then all the way to the right onetime. This way you cover all of the nut mixture. You also want to alternate between which side has the double of the dough. If you see above how I flipped over the extra piece onto the pan. You want to do it such that the extra piece is not always hanging off the same side (like in the above picture).

7. Next, add the nut mixture. You want about a 1/2 cm layer of the recipe. You will have some mixture leftover. 

8. Add rest of phyllo dough, as described above. Try to push it down as you keep adding layers. This helps it puff out a bit. 

9. Cut in whatever you would like (squares, diamonds).

10. Bake at 350F for 50 minutes or until golden. Pour desired amount of syrup on top of it.

Yummm

Safiha (Meat Pie)

So by far is this is my favorite Arab food. It is sooo good! Me and my mom worked together to make this. Of course the recipe is all hers :-)

This is not an easy food to make. It takes a lot of time and energy, but it is really good.

First, you need to get the dough ready.

Ingredients:

• 1 packed highly active yeast (20.8g), 6.5 tsps.
• 3/4 tsp. sugar
• Warm water
• 4 cups flour
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 1 egg
• 1/2 vegetable oil
• 1 cup warm milk

Ready to learn how to make dough?

1. Pre-heat oven, just so it warms up a bit. 
2. In an average sized cup, mix yeast and sugar. Add warm water almost to the top.
3. Leave in warm oven for 10 minutes.
4. During this time, mix flour, salt, and honey in a big round pan.
5. In a blender mix egg and oil. Once mixed, add milk (can warm milk, by putting it in microwave for a little bit).
6. Once the yeast is ready you can start. Take pan that has flour in it,k make a hole in the middle of the flour, and pour yeast. 
7. Start kneading and mixing mixture.
8. Start adding egg/milk mixture slowly.
9. Keep kneading and kneading. Your hands will get sticky, but if the dough is good your hands will get clean of dough as you go.
• If your hands are still sticking and all the ingredients are mixed, add a small amount of water.
• If the dough seems to be hard and dry, add water.
10. Take a big pot, and add some oil to it. Take dough and round into a ball and place in pot. Take a small cloth or towel and water. Squeeze any access water out and place over pot to cover.  Put pot in pre-warmed oven. Make sure to put something under the pot so the oven doesn't cook the dough from the bottom.
11. Leave in warm oven for an hour to let it rise! 
12. It should double in size. The dough looked like this after an hour:

While you wait for the dough you can make the meat mixture.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. ground beef
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium tomato, finely chopped (I mean really fine)
• 2 tbs. pomegranate molasses
• 2 tsps. salt
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 cardamon
• Any other spices you would like! Just keep in mind the other spices have a slightly sour taste, so you might not want to put too much spices. Keep it simple!

You can also prep your pans. Just put a little bit of oil and spread it all over the pan, to make sure it is evenly covered.  

Now comes the fun part! :-)

Clean off a flat surface that you can work on.

1. Break off a piece of the dough. DO NOT KNEAD IT.  Just grab a small softball sized piece of the dough.

2. Sprinkle some flour on the surface. Put dough on surface and use your hands to make it flat. Don't stretch the dough. The purpose of this is just so it is easier to roll.

3.Then use a rolling pin to roll the dough until it is very thin. Start in the middle and roll out.  Keep doing this until the dough is even. You don't want it so thin such that you can see through it. I am not sure if you can see the thickness, but it is probably half a centimeter.

4.  Then use a round cup with even edges to cut the dough into small circles.  Make sure you cut down really deep so it is completely cut off from the rest of the dough. 

5.  Take each circle. Either with your hand or the rolling pin and make it thin if it isn't already. Then add some of the meat mixture in the middle and thin it out. Like this:

So you want to make a triangle. So take one side and do this:

Then the other:

Then the other:

Make to press down, so it won't open up in the oven. You also want to make a sure a decent amount of the meat is showing so it cooks. 

Put it in a pan and make sure it is covered like this:

This way the dough doesn't dry out.

When you finish about a tray, you can pre-heat the oven to 500F. As for the placement of the racks. One should be at the very bottom, and one two stubs down from the top.

6.  Place the tray on the bottom rack and bake for around 7 minutes or until the bottom of the pie is browned.

7. Switch the tray to the top rack and bake for about 3 or 4 minutes. Or until the top is browned.

8. Take out of the oven, eat, and enjoy!

It goes really well with the Middle-Eastern salad Tabloeh.

Stuffed Grape Leaves!

Grape leaves. My absolute favorite food. I could eat them more or less everyday.  See they are not easy or fun to make, but the results are amazing. Just looking at the perfectly wrapped leaves...Or maybe it is just my OCDness. Anyways, for the longest time my mom made the stuffing, I stuffed, and she cooked.  I always wanted to try it on my own, because I refuse to say I made anything unless I made it from start to finish.
I got my chance to do so this past weekend. So I decided to finally give it a try.
They turned out pretty good. I did not have the kind of rice my mom usually uses. She usually uses the medium rice (Egyptian rice), but I could only find Basmati.   The  only thing with that type of rice is that it does not puff up and become soft and mushy.  Some people like that, others dont. So it really depends on what you like. I like the mushy type, but my dad likes the "normal" kind and he loved the grape leaves!

Ok, here we go. :-)

Ingredients

• 1.5 cans Grape Leaves
• 1 tomato
• 4 tbsp. tomato paste
• 4 cups water
• ¼  tsp. salt
• 4 tbsp. olive oil

Rice Mixture:

• 4 cups Medium Rice
• 1 pound ground beef
• 3 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 3 tbsp. tomato paste
• 4 tbsp. vegetable oil + extra on hand
• 2 tsp Dried mint
• 2 tsp. Dill weed

Directions

1. Wash rice.
2. Mix all ingredients of rice mixture in large bowl. If mixture is dry add more vegetable oil. Keep oil on hand throughout wrapping.  Use hands to mix!
3. Wash grape leaves in water.
4. Cut stem off grape leaves.
5. Place grape leaves rough side up.
6. Add one tbsp. of mixture to the base of the leaf.
7. Wrap leaves as depicted in the pictures below.
8. Slice tomato.  You can also put potatoes, chicken, or meat.
9. Line the bottom of a pressure cooker with slices of tomato.
10. Line grape leaves in pressure cooker.
11. Place metal plate (comes with pressure cooker) on top of grape leaves
12. In small mix tomato paste, water, salt, and olive oil.
13. Pour this mixture over grape leaves.
14. Place a glass bowl (that can withstand heat) on top of metal plate. (This is put pressure on grape leaves, or your wrapping will come loose). Add some water to bowl.
15. Cover. Place on high heat.
16. When the top whistles, leave the cooker on high for two minutes.  Then lower to medium for 5 minutes, then lower the heat to medium low for forty minutes.
17. Take off heat. Let cool.
18. Remove glass bowl (try to not spill any of the water), and metal plate. Flip pot over on big plate.
19. Eat and enjoy! Saha wa hana!

How to wrap grape leaves!

Place leaves "rough" side up.

Add around 1 tbsp. rice mixture.

Bring up the bottom pieces of the grape leaf. Tuck in mixture.

Wrap in the sides.

Start rolling!

Keep rolling.

So some bumps you might hit are that the leaf might be really big, or it might have holes in it. That is very easy to fix.  

-What is too big? You just have to learn from experience. If you look at the leaf above. That is a perfect size.  If it is too big just cut it right along the middle. If you follow the stem it is very easy.

-if there are holes, what I usually do is  save one leaf that has many holes in it. Anytime I get one leaf with a whole I just tear a piece of the really bad leaf and cover up the hole.

Hope this helps. :-)

Konafa

This is one of my favorite desserts! You can't find it a lot here and when you do it is mad expensive.

Ingredients:
-½ cup butter
-1lb konafa
-½ cup milk
-1 lb ricotta cheese
-½ cup veg oil

Directions:

• Defrost dough
• Preheat oven to 450F
• In large bowl mix dough, butter, and vegetable oil. Shred the dough as you mix.
• Split the dough in half.
• Place the first half in the pan you want to cook in it. Be sure to press it down and that you can't see the pan through the dough.
• Mix the cheese and the milk.
• Using your hands spread the cheese/milk mixture over the dough.
• Place the remaining dough on top of the mixture.
• Cook for 25 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and sprinkle syrup over the entire konafa.

Syrup

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugars
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. rose water

Directions:

• Place sugar and water in saucepan on medium high.
• Continue to stir the mixture until the sugar dissolves.
• When the mixture boils add lemon juice.
• Lower the heat to medium low and leave for ten minutes.
• Turn off the heat and add the rose water.

Enjoy!

Kofta

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp peper
• 1 tsp spice
• 3 tbsp bread crumps
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp yogurt
• 1 tsp. ginger powder
• 1 tsp. basil leaves

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• Mix ingredients. 
• Cook for 20 minutes covered.
• Broil for 10-15 minutes.