Baked Meatballs Recipe

I adapted this recipe from Alton Brown's recipe. I really liked it and thought it was great. The seasoning is enough such that you can eat it on its own or with a sauce. Enjoy! 

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Makes: 25-30 meatballs

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 1.5 tsp dried basil
• 1.5 tsp dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 whole egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Combine ground beef and dry ingredients.
3. Add whole egg. Combine well.
4. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on baking sheet. 
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. 

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.

Shepherd's Pie

My mom is out of town so I am left fending for myself. Which means I will be cooking a lot more, but it also means I might not be able to update as often as I would like.

I kind of just threw a bunch of things together.

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil
• 1.5 lb ground beef
• 1 onion
• 1 tbsp. garlic powder
• 1.5 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tbsp. rosemary leaves
• 1 tbsp. parsley flakes
• Mashed Potatoes prepared from a box! (After a long day of work I do not feel dealing with potatoes) 2-3 servings should be enough.
• Optional
• Extra paprika
• Butter
• Mozzarella Cheese

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 F.
2. Pour some vegetable oil in a pot.
3. Add onions.
4. Once the onions have a slight color to them, add the ground beef and all the spices and tomato past.
5. Keep stirring and mixing up the ground beef until it turns brown.
6. I also added a little bit of grated mozzarella cheese.
7. Continue to cook for 15-20 minutes.
8. Once thoroughly cooked, place in a 9X11 pan. Smoothen it out.
9. Prepare mashed potatoes according to box.
10. Add mashed potatoes on top of meat. Smoothen out. Make sure the mashed potatoes are up against the sides.
11. Sprinkle some paprika on top.
12. Use fork to create lines across dish.
13.  Cut up slice of butter and place on top too. or until potatoes start to brown.
14. Bake for 20 minutes

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. :-)

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.