Lebanese Cookery with Waafa

The Wi Lite ladies had a delectable evening with Waafa at the August meeting.  Waafa has spent many years in the Lebanon and is a skilled cook.  Lebanese cookery is very much mediterranean food with a touch of Turkish thrown in.  It is well known for their fresh tomato salads, fish and lamb dishes.

Waafa produced three relatively simple dishes which we could all be made easily at home.  The first was a tomato and onion salad, which was tossed in a generous amount of lemon juice and dressed with oil and seasoned with herbs.  The ladies learnt that if you salted the onions heavily and then squeezed out the excess water prior to adding to the salad it meant that the onions were far less pungent to eat and made a huge difference to the flavour.

The second dish was a cooked rice, lentil and rice dish - equally simple but suprisingly yummy.  And finally a desert which consisted of soft cheese, mozarella mixed with semolina and a homemade orange and rosewater syrup topped with clotted cream and pistachio nuts.

Mjadra 

Ingredients: for 4 people

200g green lentils

200g long grain rice, or bulgur wheat

2 onions

Salt

Olive oil or 20g butter

Recipe

cook lentils until soft for about 15 to 20 minutes then and the rice. Add the amount of water you normally add to cook the rice. Stir occasionally

While the rice is cooking, chop the onion and fry with the oil or butter till golden then add to the pot. Add salt

Leave to cook for few minutes till the water evaporates.

Serve with plain yogurt or tomato salad

Tomato salad:

4 tomatoes

1 medium onion

Fresh mint

Juice of one lemon or more to your liking,

Olive oil and salt

Chop tomatoes, onion and mint. Put in a salad bowl.

Add the lemon juice, olive oil and salt

Tip: to get rid of the sharpness of the onion, add salt on the chopped onion, crush with the knife few time and leave for few minutes. With your hand squeeze the juice of the onion and get rid of it, add onion to salad.

Halawet el jibin

2x 125g motzarella chopped and soaked in water over night. Change the water few times to get rid of the salt

200g soft cheese

200g semolina

Clotted cream

Syrup

Crushed pistachio

 Put semolina with cheese in a pan over very low heat.

With a musher mush all together adding bit of syrup at the time until all nicely combined.

While warm spread in a flat serving dish up to 1 cm thick. Leave to cool.

Spread clotted cream on top of semolina mix.

Scatter crushed pistachio and drizzle with little syrup before you serve.

Syrup:

In a small pan put 1 cup granulated sugar, add 1 cup cold water over medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves, Add 2 Tbp lemon juice and stir until you get a syrup consistency.

To achieve the middle east flavor of syrup, add 1 Tbp rose water and I Tbp orange flower water, just before you switch off the heat.

Enjoy ( Sahten, as they say in Arabic)

Thank so much to Waafa for a great evening, she will also be running an Arabian night on the 10th November cost is £25 per head there will be an enchanting belly dance show and an evening of delicious Lebanese cuisine - for bookings please call 01225 355072