“Where are the Emirati restaurants in Dubai?”

When I first moved here, almost four years ago, I used to ask this question a lot.

I soon stopped asking because I would get the same responses over and over. Either, “I don’t know,” or “Emirati food is in Emirati homes,” or “Local House in Bastakia.”

There are scores of Lebanese, Turkish, Moroccan, a few Iranian plus other Arab nations but local Emirati restaurants? My almost two-year old toddler can count how many there are in Dubai. He can currently count to two, sometimes three, by the way.

Back in my working days, an Emirati colleague of mine told me about a now defunct Emirati restaurant by Safa Park and also recommended Local House. He made me write down three dishes that he said I must order when I get there: chobab bread, rigga pancake (?), and veal harees. At that time, the now famous camel burger hadn’t appeared on the Local House menu yet.

Part of the reason why I started my Emirati cooking project was because there was a lack of Emirati cuisine to sample. I still haven’t made it to Local House and since starting this project I often wonder if I should visit there but have been held back by many a friends’ negative review of the place. I think I will give it a try the next time I have a visitor in town to accompany me.

Some good news I’ve heard recently is that two new Emirati restaurants have opened up this year and I can’t wait to try them: Emirati N More (in the Cassells Al Barsha Hotel) and Al Fanar Restaurant & Cafe (in Festival City’s canal walk). If you’ve been to either, please let me know if it’s any good.

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It’s been a few months since I last posted an Emirati recipe attempt and it’s time to get back on track.

The last Emirati dish I posted was an Emirati Chicken Biryani and as it was the first time I had every made biryani, I wondered how and if the preparation and cooking process differed from Indian biryanis. In response, Mishti from Stovetop Dancing replied with this informative comment:

“Yup, this comes pretty close to the Indian Biryani. Although Indian biryani is almost never cooked with boneless biryani (except the contemporary invention of chicken tikka biryani). Apparently when chicken is cooked while on the bone, it is juicier; and since biryani is mostly dry, this helps counter that in a mild way.

You were right in taking out the whole spices, we always do this.

There are two ways of making it the Indian way. The “kachchi” biryani where chicken and rice are cooked together and “pakki” biryani (like the Emirati one) where the rice is almost cooked, chicken is also done and then they are layered and put on “dum” meaning pressure. The latter is much more common. For this, we seal the utensil in which the biryani is cooking with a flour dough. The vapour causes the dough to become like a chappati and it smells great In India, biryani is always served with raita, a yogurt based salad.

I think I was once told that Biryani originated in Persia and travelled to India with the Mughal empire. Also an interesting snippet was that Mumtaz Mahal (wife of Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal in her honor) served biryani to the Mughal army since it was “complete nutrition” and the eggs were thrown in as extra protein for the soldiers. Who knows?  “

Thanks Mishti for “geeking it out on food”!

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So my last Emirati biryani (chicken), which started off pretty disastrous and I thought it was going to be a complete failure, ended up being a huge success.

Whereas today’s Emirati biryani (lamb), started out very well, with great flavors, and properly cooked rice – so I had high hopes that it would top the last biryani attempt – but it ended up being a huge disappointment.

If you would like to try your hand at Emirati lamb biryani, please visit this link for the recipe and I hope that your attempt will be better than mine. Please come back and comment to let me know how you get on.

About this recipe, Celia writes:

A very popular daily meal, usually made in large portions for special occasions such as Eids, weddings and engagement parties. Serve with salad, limes, yoghurt and fresh herbs.

Right. It seems that I am forever changing the serving size of these recipes so let me begin to tell you about some of the changes that I made.

My eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets when I saw that the original lamb biryani recipe called for 6 cups of basmati rice. I was only making this for a small lunch party, not the large celebrations that the recipe was probably intended for.

For the previous biryani, I used 2 cups of rice and that served 10 people. Which would mean that 6 cups would serve 30!

I don’t have enough guinea pigs friends in Dubai to serve 6 cups of rice. Plus I didn’t want leftovers for a whole month. So I thirded (is that even a word?) the recipe and used 2 cups of basmati rice which I rinsed a few times and then soaked for a couple hours. Is the soaking supposed to make the rice fluffier, I wonder?

I used 1 lb (450 g) of boneless leg of lamb that I cubed and boiled until tender (45 minutes). Instead of whole blanched almonds, I used slivered almonds because I was too lazy to blanch and peel the whole ones.

Sauteing the onions

I bought yellow split peas for the first time. The bag from the grocery store (Carrefour) was labeled “Moong Dal” – they were the only peas in the peas/dal aisle that was yellow and split so I hope they were the right ones.

Celia’s instructions said to “boil and drain the yellow peas.” Since I have never prepared yellow split peas before, I wondered if I was supposed to (1) rinse them first? (2) throw them in the pot when the water is boiling? (3) throw them in the pot when the water was cold and bring to boil? (4) boil them for 5 seconds? 1 minute? 10 minutes?

Conundrum.

About to mix in the sultanas, almonds, peas, and tomatoes

A quick Google search resulted in me rinsing the split peas, putting them in water (enough to cover the peas), bringing the water to a boil and simmering the peas for 20 minutes.

No idea if that’s what I was supposed to do or not but that’s what I did.

Cooking the onion-split pea-tomato mixture

“Boil cloves, peppercorns, cardamom and cinnamon in the water and add salt to taste. Once it has started to boil, add the rice.” For my chicken biryani, I had wondered if my rice would have been more fragrant if I had boiled the spices in the water first before throwing the rice in. But here Celia tells me to do exactly that.

I only boiled the rice for 5 minutes this time, instead of 10, and thankfully it did not come out overly cooked, sticky, and falling apart like the last time. Again, Celia does not mention if I’m supposed to remove the spices after draining the rice.

This time I decided to leave them in. Except for the cloves because I had discovered them on my kitchen counter while I was draining the rice so I never threw those into the pot in the first place. Sigh.

Well, better late than never. So in went the cloves with the already drained rice.

Drained rice and the forgotten cloves

I fried the meat in oil for a few minutes and tasted a few pieces – they were very good! It made me think that my biryani was going to come out special.

Frying the lamb

When adding the oil to the pot for the layering, the recipe didn’t mention whether I should heat the pot up first so my oil wasn’t fluid and just sat in one small area.

Maybe I was supposed to add more oil until it did cover the pot? I decided to not do that and heated the pot so that the oil softened enough to coat the bottom.

Layering the Biryani

I layered as instructed.

But I wasn’t sure which layer I was supposed to end on – rice? meat? tomato-onion mixture? I decided to use the rice as the top layer.

Saffron was soaked in rosewater diluted with tap water. I was supposed to “drizzle the remaining oil on top, then the saffron.” Here, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to drain the saffron and discard the rosewater – OR – if I was to drizzle both the saffron and rosewater on top of the biryani. Hmmph.

I decided to go halfway and poured half of the diluted rosewater onto the biryani plus all the saffron. Except the saffron just clumped in one small pocket of rice. I was hoping that it would dissolve as it cooked (it didn’t).

Soaking the saffron in rosewater and water

“Cover with a cloth and tightly-fitting lid.” I didn’t have a clean cloth that wasn’t reeking with fabric softener so I used a few layers of dampened kitchen roll. I don’t know why I dampened it because I now notice that the instructions didn’t say “wet cloth” just “cloth.” Arg.

After simmering for 20 minutes, I removed the biryani from heat and let it rest for a bit.

Finally it was biryani sampling time. I had high hopes. False hopes now. The rice wasn’t too bad but the lamb, once moist, tender and tasty, came out dry, a little tough, and somewhat flavorless.

I did not enjoy the texture of the split peas and I couldn’t really taste the almonds. Maybe that’s why I was supposed to use whole, blanched almonds.

However, the next day, the almonds firmed up and added a nice crunch to the dish.

I notice that Celia’s picture from this recipe has sliced egg in it. But it wasn’t called for in the recipe nor the notes so my lamb biryani has no egg.

Maybe this post should be re-titled: “Trials and Tribulations of a Clueless Girl in Dubai Attempting to Cook Emirati Lamb Biryani” Nah, too long

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I made this biryani back in June and Wee Scotch had not only started to throw toddler tantrums but was starting to get quite picky with his food so he refused to eat this lamb biryani no matter how hard I tried to bribe him with sweets and candy (not that I do that often!).

Not to worry! Wee Scotch’s girlfriend was quick to step in to pose for the photos and save the day.

Scotch said that the lamb biryani was “good” but I think he might have just been humoring me knowing all the effort that I put into making it.

We had TONS of leftovers and I ended up throwing out all the lamb (too dry) and using the rest of the biryani as a side dish for a chicken curry.

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Previous Emirati recipe: Emirati Recipe: Chicken Biryani (Biryani de-jaj)

Up next: Shrimp Fried with Spices (Ro-be-yann nashif)

Note: This post is part of my Cooking Local project.

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When I started my Emirati cooking project in June 2008, almost three and a half years ago, it was so that I could learn more about the culture of the host country in which I was living.

With a dearth of restaurants to choose from at the time (and I wasn’t even sure how authentic they were), I decided to teach myself Emirati cooking.

In the four years that I’ve lived in Dubai, I’ve made very few Emirati friends (but have been invited to one Emirati wedding) and only recently experienced Emirati home cooking.

Last month, during the week of Thanksgiving, Arwa of La Mere Culinaire invited us to her Emirati home and into her mom’s kitchen for a lesson in Emirati cooking.

Wee Scotch and I embarked on a little adventure as we drove 40 minutes to a part of Dubai that we had never been to. Arwa’s neighborhood is an older but well-to-do part of the city, with many beautiful dwellings that could be labeled as mansions for their sheer size but are colloquially referred to as villas in Dubai.

As my son and I walked into the cul de sac leading to Arwa’s family villa, the first thing that struck me was the sound of chirping from a large aviary. Wee Scotch would normally be over-excited to see so many of his favorite feathered friends in one place but as he was in the midst of a toddler tantrum, the birds seemed to upset him more than excite.

So we quickly entered the villa and  followed Arwa into a sitting room where many of my fellow Dubai Fooderati were already gathered.

Some were beautifully dressed in jalabiyas, which for females are long, flowy, embroidered and colorful garments, robe-like, and are worn at home when entertaining or to parties.

Arwa’s family have a lovely home, well appointed and with several sitting areas for entertaining. This wasn’t Come Dine With Me, so there was to be no rummaging through cupboards nor peeking into boudoirs.

We enjoyed Arabic coffee and tea in the sitting room before moving to the adjacent dining room for a traditional Emirati breakfast of:

Batheeth – beautifully textured cookies made from a flour base, naturally sweetened with dates and flavored with Arabic spices:

Chami – a dish made by simmering yogurt until most of the water has evaporated, leaving behind a crumbly cottage cheese-like texture. It is then drizzled with samen/ghee/or clarified butter:

Dangaw – lightly spiced and boiled chickpeas:

Mahalla – golden-colored crepes that I think were made with dates and flavored with cardamom. I don’t have any close-ups of these but you can see a glimpse of them in the very center of the photo below. They were light and scrumptious:

After breakfast, we went next door to the kitchen where Arwa’s mom warmly greeted us by the door and shook each of our hands.

In the kitchen, we quickly made ourselves comfortable and began snapping photos of everything in sight – the fridge contents, the cooking ingredients, the cooking pot, the tossing in of each and every spice…I think Arwa’s mom probably thought we were crazy-mad but you know how trigger happy us food bloggers are in order to document everything.

I was really excited to find out about the first dish that Arwa’s mom was preparing because it was something that I had actually made before as part of my cooking project and could now have something to compare it to!

She was making Machboos/Fogga Dejaj – or “Fogat Diyay” as it is known in Gulf Arabic – which is a biryani-like dish that translates as “chicken on top.” The dish is flavored with the quintessential Emirati spice mixture known as bezar.

The exact ingredients and proportions of spices used to make bezar vary from family to family. This is the homemade bezar from Arwa’s family and they were generous to give us some to take home for our own culinary use:

Homemade Bezar from Arwa's family

In addition to the bezar, Arwa’s mom also used a unique spice blend that was predominantly cinnamon with notes of nutmeg and other spices as well:

As Arwa’s mom was demo-ing this dish, one of the things that struck me was that she cut the loomi (dried limes) in half to release more of the flavors (which I hadn’t done in any of my dishes that called for loomi as I thought you just tossed the things in whole):

Loomi (dried limes)

Throughout the morning, we bombarded Arwa and her mom with so many cooking questions, and they graciously answered all of our questions to the best of their abilities with Arwa translating for those of us who didn’t speak Arabic.

Wee Scotch helping Dima take down notes

With all the spices going into the cooking pot, the kitchen was just awesomely aromatic.

Here is a slideshow of Arwa’s mom preparing the Fogat Diyay (may not be viewable if you are reading this from an email client or mobile device):

And during the morning’s cooking session, Arwa’s dad and husband stopped by to briefly say hello to us and probably to make sure that all these strangers that she had invited into their home weren’t crazies off the street. Well, we are crazy, but in a different sense – you know, crazy about food.

The second dish that Arwa’s mom demonstrated for us was called Balaleet which is a breakfast dish made with vermicelli, scrambled eggs, red onion, saffron, and lots and lots of sugar and cardamom.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the dish at first as it was quite sweet for me but the flavor of cardamon kept drawing me back for taste after taste. In the end, I think I decided that I liked balaleet.

While we waited for the lunch dishes to be plated, we adjourned to the sitting room for more Arabic coffee and tea.

Since I don’t drink coffee, I opted for the mint tea.

I loved the beautifully adorned coffee and tea pots and the delicate cups! As Arwa served the tea, she informed us that the tea cups are used with saucers and the coffee cups stand alone.

And now, the finished and plated Fogat Diyay:

I loved the flavors of this dish when I amateurly attempted my own version and I loved it even more when it was prepared by a seasoned Emirati cook – aka Arwa’s mom. I didn’t just have seconds, I went back for thirds! The loomi, now softened, was a big hit with many of us – it tasted very much like Chinese preserved kumquats – and gave a nice citrusy element to the dish.

To accompany the Fogat Diyay, there were pickled shallots, mangoes, and limes. We were served fresh juices with the meal and I had a lovely blood orange and cardamom combination that I must try to make at home.

Now if you are thinking that the photo above is a picture of a glass of water…you are right.

But no, I have not gone so trigger happy with my camera as to take a picture of plain water. This isn’t ordinary water, you see. It’s water that has been perfumed with frankincense. The incense gave the water quite a strong aroma and flavor and I would imagine that is is something that should be sipped, not gulped as I found it quite overpowering for a first-timer.

Arwa explained to us how the water is infused with the scent of the frankincense. I think she mentioned something about taking a water jug and putting it upside down over the burning incense. Except, now that I think of it, how does the water not come spilling out if it’s upside down?

Frankincense water and Frankincense in a box

After lunch, we adjourned back to the sitting room where, if we chose to, perfumed ourselves with incense…

…and fragrances that were mixed and blended by Arwa’s aunt:

Some of the ladies lifted up their abayas so that the incense could waft up through the fabric. Wee Scotch saw this and kept lifting up his t-shirt indicating that he do wanted to do the same. Arwa obliged and even placed some perfume on his wrists when he stuck his arms out, mimicking us.

In true Emirati hospitality, Arwa and family made sure that we left laden with generous parting gifts. In addition to the bezar, we were also gifted dates from their farm (vacuum-packed and flavored with what looked like fennel and sesame seeds), laban (Arabic buttermilk) flavored for drinking, and a gift bag with UAE trinkets and UAE flags.

Wee Scotch waving two Emirati flags

It was certainly very generous of Arwa and family for not only inviting us over to learn about Emirati food and culture but to also send us off with such wonderful gifts – much of which originated from their family farms.

Many thanks to Arwa and her mom for their graciousness and for teaching us about Emirati cuisine, spices, culture, and showing us true Emirati hospitality.

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Fellow Fooderati in Arabia members who were also present and their account of the event:

• Dima @ Dima’s Kitchen
• Marta @ Marta’s Kitchen
• Nadia @ Nadia Masood
• Sally @ My Custard Pie
• Sara @ The Hedonista

I never did get back on track with my Emirati cooking, did I?

Lamb Biryani was the last recipe I posted but I did get to observe a few home-cooked Emirati dishes (namely, Chicken Machboos and Balaleet) this past November.

And recently, I went to an Emirati restaurant for the first time – Al Fanar in Dubai Festival City – and had a great time sitting outside on the Arabic seating and enjoying all the local dishes.

I hope to take my in-laws to Al Fanar when they visit next week.

Speaking of the in-laws, I never got around to posting the photos of their visit from 2011! So before I get into the Emirati recipe for this week, allow me to share with you some photos of our trip to Liwa last year.

(Below slideshow may not be viewable if you are reading this from an email client or mobile device):

Liwa is located in the southernmost part of Abu Dhabi (the capital of the UAE), almost into Saudi Arabia, on the northern edge of Rub’ al Khali desert. The area is covered with sand dunes with heights up to 250 metres (820 ft) and the sand is a beautiful reddish-orange color due to the presence of feldspar.

From Wikipedia:

The Rub’ al Khali or Empty Quarter is one of the largest sand deserts in the world encompassing most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula, including southern Saudi Arabia, and areas of Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The desert covers some 650,000 square kilometres (250,000 sq mi)…more than the combined land areas of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

It took us about 3 hours to drive from Dubai to Liwa. Along the way, we visited the Emirates National Auto Museum but unfortunately it was closed for some reason so I was only able to take some exterior photos of the place.

We stayed at the Tilal Hotel which was comfortable and nicely furnished and then on the way back to Dubai, we stopped at the luxurious Qasr al Sarab for lunch by the pool.

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This week’s Emirati recipe was prepared last June.

I know, I KNOW, what a delinquent I am at posting these things.

But for once I was able to follow one of Celia’s recipes to a “T”!  Well, except for one teensy weensy change of reducing the oil from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup and I used canola instead of corn as that’s what I had in my cupboard.

If you love shrimp like I do, this is a great Emirati recipe to try! And I hope that you get the chance to recreate this dish as well – for the recipe, please click here.

About this dish, Celia writes:

This is a very popular main course meal. The dried jumbo shrimps are ideal, but fresh locally caught prawns are just as tasty.

Some people add a little more oil at the frying stage which gives a richer flavour, while others may add one or two finely chopped green chillies during the cooking stage. When this is served as a luncheon dish it is normally accompanied by plain boiled rice, but as an evening meal, it is more common to serve paratha or chapati bread, hot from the pavement baker.

For the cook who hasn’t ready access to these types of bread, try pita bread which has been warmed in the oven or microwave. Side dishes of sliced limes and mixed salad would be the normal accompaniments for this modern dish.

I’ve never seen dried jumbo shrimps sold in Dubai but with fresh shrimp readily available, I would much rather use fresh.

First, I fried the onions, with a sprinkle of salt, in vegetable oil for about 5 minutes.

The spices for this dish were bezar, turmeric, ground fennel seeds, loomi powder, cumin, curry leaves, garlic cloves, and grated fresh ginger:

This recipe calls for a “pinch” of ground fennel seeds. Now I’ve always wondered, what exactly is a pinch?

And would those with different finger sizes have different pinch quantities?

I used ¼ teaspoon of whole fennel that I mortared and pestled as I couldn’t be bothered with taking out the blender – which I keep in one cupboard but the spice grinder attachment is in the bowels of a different cupboard.

And on another note, Celia says to cook the onions until “brown” but I find that when my onions are brown, they are more accurately describe as “burnt.” Ah, well.

I thought I had chilli chapatti in my freezer but it was actually chilli nan and in the middle of frying up the shrimp while Wee Scotch was napping, there was no way was I going to leave my apartment in search of chapatti or paratha so chilli nan it was!

The spices were fried for 5 minutes and the fragrance they released was so mouthwatering. Next I added the shrimp with a sprinkle of salt and simmered them for 10 minutes on very low heat with a bit of water, maybe about 1/3 cup.

I served this dish on white rice and chilli nan whose sole purpose were to soak up the flavorful sauce.

And I loved the garlic-ginger combo mixed in with the bezar – I would definitely use it in other variations like with chicken or beef.

These photos of Wee Scotch taste-testing the dish is from last June (when he was one and a half) and as I was editing them, I can’t believe how much my little boy has already grown!

He’s still quite fearless and willing to try anything.

He enjoys his chicken and beef, but shrimp is still his favorite.

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Previous Emirati recipe:  Lamb Biryani (La-ham biryani)

Up next:  Fried Savoury Triangles (Samboosa)

Note:  This post is part of my Cooking Local project.

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Emirati Samboosas

Have you been watching the Summer Olympics?

The UAE has never participated in the Winter Olympics but has participated in seven Summer Olympics starting with the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

This year, for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the UAE team comprised of 30 athletes and competed in the following sports: athletics (triple jump and 1500m), football, judo, shooting, swimming, and weightlifting.

So far, only one medal has been won by a UAE athlete, and that was a gold medal by HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Hasher Al Maktoum, for the double trap (shooting) at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Since moving to the Middle East nearly 5 years ago, this was the first time I could actually watch the games as the last few Olympics seemed to have garnered minimal TV coverage in Dubai.

We have had the same cable package for the last 4 years and this year – thanks to the new OSN Network – what a change!

At least 10 OSN sports channels (in English) are covering the Olympics with 4 dedicated Olympics channels – wow! Watching the Olympics again after so many years, I felt transported back in time when I was a little girl sitting in my parents living room and glued to the TV watching my favorite Olympic sports of gymnastics, diving and swimming.

The coverage is spotty at times: we lose audio signal and hence the commentary sometimes, the video feed freezes once in a while, and there are times I want to watch more of the US competitors but I’m happy to see so much coverage as it is and I understand that being a global network, other countries need to be spotlighted as well.

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I am glad that I’m not representing my country in cooking were it an Olympic sport. Because if I were, my performance today in kitchen stadium would have put me at the bottom of the rankings and out of medal contention.

I had planned to make Emirati Samboosas since my last Emirati cooking session in February and had been carrying around the ingredients list all this time.

About these Samboosas, Celia from “The Complete UAE Cookbook” writes:

These savoury triangular-shaped pastries are probably the most popular in the UAE. Again ‘imported’ into the UAE kitchen from india, they can be filled with vegetable, chicken or meat mixtures following the basic recipe.

Making samboosas at home can be time-consuming, and these days, large quantities are made and frozen in batches to deep fry when needed. They are however, available in the many small Indian resturants around the Emirates and are popular as an any-time-of -the-day snack, and a particular favourite during Ramadan.

What makes these samboosas different from Indian samosas is the use of the Emirati spice mixture, bezar.

I was very pleased to be able to use bezar that was made in an Emirati home – thanks to the generous Arwa from La Mere Culinaire and her mom who gifted me a huge bagful when Arwa invited me to her beautiful home last November (you can read about that experience here).

To make these samboosas (click here for the recipe), I started off with sauteing 900 grams (2 lbs) of onions.

Eyes tearing and burning to the point where I couldn’t even see the knife I was holding and concerned for the safety of my fingers, I actually gave up chopping the last onion.

Sauteed Onions

The recipe called for ground cardamom which I didn’t have so I took a few green cardamom pods and threw them in a mortar and pestle with some sea salt and pounded and pounded them to a ground-ish texture.

And after removing the outer cardamom shells, voila, semi-ground cardamom (photo below, right):

Ground Cardamon and Sea Salt

Overall this looked like a very simple recipe. The first line of the instructions said to “mix all ingredients together.” Simple?

So I threw my sauteed onions, cilantro, garlic, spices (including loomi and bezar), green chillis, as well as the raw ground beef into a large bowl and began to mix.

Checking the ingredients list to make sure I had added everything, that was when I noticed that the first ingredient was “cooked, minced beef.”

WHAT?!

Samboosa mixture

You can see from the photo above that my beef was definitely still raw. And no way could I separate out the beef mince at that point. And no way was I going to throw out all that perfectly good food and start over from scratch.

After a few frantic message exchanges for help via Facebook, I decided to proceed with the recipe using the raw meat. When I make Vietnamese spring rolls, all the ingredients are mixed raw and then rolled in pastry skin and deep fried for 6-7 minutes. Making samboosas seemed no different.

Samboosa Pastry

Next it was time to assemble the filling into the samboosa pastry.

Samboosa / samosa pastry* are long and rectangular and easily available in the frozen section of any supermarket in Dubai. When taken out of the freezer and placed at room temperature, they defrost in no time (maybe 30 minutes?). Once removed from the packaging, the pastry that’s not being used can dry out easily so it’s important to remember to cover them with a wet paper towel or wet cloth.

Celia gives no instruction on how to fold a samboosa except to put “a little of the mixture into the middle of a samboosa wrapper and fold over tightly.”

I did exactly that and then realized I had no idea how to fold the pastry into a triangle:

Emirati Samboosa

As I stared at the samboosa and wondered what to do…

…my background board fell over and flattened my samboosa filling:

Emirati Samboosa

Undeterred, I wiped the raw meat from my white board and logged on to YouTube for a crash course on samboosa wrapping. This 30 Second Samosa video (which is actually 36 seconds long) proved to be the most useful and after a few rough starts and ugly looking non-triangular samboosas, I started to make some pretty nice ones.

Just like making spring rolls, I heated my deep fryer to 165ºC and fried the samboosas for 5-6 minutes using Mazola sunflower oil.

They turned out marvelous!

So crispy on the outside, completely cooked on the inside and the spicy flavors of the Arwa’s mom’s bezar married with the meat very well. And every once in a while I would get a surprise but pleasant burst of cardamon flavor.

I really cannot wait to make these again but will precook the meat next time with the onions and hope that they will taste just as great or even better!

Emirati Samboosa

*This pack of samboosa pastry contained 50 leaves (it says so on the packaging). I used 1 kg of meat (2.2 lbs) and that was enough mixture for about 60-65 samboosas. The remaining leaves can be placed in a resealable bag and refrozen.

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Previous Emirati recipe:  Shrimp Fried with Spices (Ro-be-yann nashif)

Up next:  Soaked Prawns (Ro-be-yann Moadam)

Note:  This post is part of my Cooking Local project.

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Sarareed Cookbook by Chef Khulood Atiq

Sometime last year, I heard through the food buzz that there was a new Emirati cookbook released and I attempted to get my hands on a copy. I know I have been a real slacker in regards to my Emirati Cooking Experiments and I had hoped that obtaining a new cookbook would breathe some life into my little project.

Sarareed by Chef Khulood Atiq is a cookbook of “Emirati cuisine from the sea to the desert” which refers to the inclusion of both coastal as well as desert (in-land) recipes. This bilingual cookbook contains over 80 recipes in English and Arabic.

Sarareed – table of contents

The book reads from right to left like most Arabic texts and has stunning photos of Emirati life and scenery as well as the food. The foreword explains a bit about Emirati hospitality including the important role that cardamon-infused coffee plays in that ritual.

An excerpt from the book:

The book bears the name “Sarareed,” an authentic Emirati word, the singular form of which, “Sarroud” is used to describe the big, traditional Emirati mat, made of woven palm leaves, around which people gather to eat and on which food is placed.

For those who are not familiar with Emirati cuisine, the head notes to many of the recipes includes beautiful descriptions of the dish and sometimes includes information about the origins, traditions, and history.

Photos from Sarareed cookbook (left: Chef Khulood Atiq)

I felt mild disappointment in the fact that not all the recipes included an informative head note – for example, the recipe for Khabees. It’s obvious that it is a dessert because it’s in the dessert section but then the last part of the recipe says to serve for breakfast. Hmm…

One place where I felt a distinct void from the lack of any description was the recipe for Bzar (also spelled Bezar). Now I am no expert in Emirati cuisine but it seems to me that Bzar is an essential spice mix that defines many Emirati dishes and I would have expected and loved to have seen a thorough description with historical notes on it.

Things I liked about the book besides the recipes and photographs: dishes popular during Ramadan were noted; the section at the end about Emirati traditions of hospitality (“recieiving and honouring a guest with enormous generosity is considered a crucial part of Emirati heritage”); the section on Emirati cuisine terms and colloquial cuisine terms (i.e. dried limes = loumi, date essence = Marees al Tamer); and the section on cooking utensil names (i.e. Dalla = a coffe pot; Tanour = an oven used for cooking or grilling). I just wish the lists were alphabetized for easier referencing.

I would like to thank my friend Sally at My Custard Pie for lending me her copy of Sarareed – Thanks Sally!

Sadly, I still don’t have my own copy as the cookbook can only be purchased in-person at Al Fanr restaurant in Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. I’m in Abu Dhabi only once in a blue moon so I was quite saddened to relinquish the book back to Sally but I think “borrowing” it for 6+ months was long enough.

[Edited Feb 14, 2013: I have purchased a copy of Sarareed at Kinokuniya bookstore in the Dubai Mall. I had to ask customer service to check the Arabic section. There are still plenty of copies (100, I was told) but for some reason they were not displayed and had to be brought from the stock room.]

And now moving on to the recipe…

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Emirati Recipe: Moadam Rubyan (Soaked Prawns)

I wanted to try a recipe that I hadn’t tried before although I was seriously tempted to making Chicken Machboos again. I settled on Moadam Rubyan (Soaked Prawns) from the coastal section (versus desert) because I just love seafood – especially prawns.

Moadam Rubyan – Soaked Shrimp recipe

Emirati recipes are created with the idea of feeding a large host of people, not a two-adult household like Scotch and mine. So I had to cut this recipe by one third as the original called for 1 kg of rice which is just too much for us as a cup of uncooked rice (~1/4 kg) lasts us for many days!

Other modifications I made to the original recipe from Chef Khulood:

• Used cherry tomatoes instead of larger ones as that’s what I had in my fridge.
• I was short on time so did not use the fish Bzar recipe as specified in the cookbook but a commercial one instead (the red “urban coastal” one from this post).

In addition to the coastal bzar mixture, this recipe also called for loumi (dried small limes), fresh garlic, fresh green chilli, fresh coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, and coriander powder. I didn’t quite understand the recipe directions of leaving the marinated shrimp “to dry in a pot” which I assumed was “to drain in a pot” so I used a colander over a bowl.

Loumi (or Loomi) = dried green limes

The other issue I ran into was the cooking of the rice – the instructions said to “pour in some water until it covers the rice by 1 cm. Cover the pot, bring to a boil and then reduce the heat until the rice is cooked.” I was using basmati rice which normally I cook like Jasmine rice (1 part rice, 2 part water) and the results were always great so the 1 cm reference in this recipe threw me off a little as it didn’t include cooking time and the proportions of water to rice didn’t seem right.

I followed the directions anyway but also decided to get an idea of how to properly cook basmati rice by throwing the question out via twitter and thanks so much to Neelu @nielouphar and to Bob @BobMarchese for their input. Anyway, I covered the rice with 1 cm of water and cooked for 10 min but the rice was very under-cooked so I added more water and cooked for a further 5 minutes but still not right so cooked another 5 minutes. Since the shrimp were embedded in the rice, I was really worried that they would be totally overcooked.

The final result?

I can’t say I was wowed by the flavors from the first taste but after a few spoonfuls of rice, I began to appreciate the flavors of the spice mixture and I just love the citrus notes from the loumi / loomi. While the shrimp wasn’t too severely overcooked, it was still a little dry but tender.

I look forward to one day obtaining my own copy of this cookbook and trying out more recipes.

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Previous Emirati recipe: Samboosa (fried savory triangles)

Up next: Meat with Rice (La-ham machboos / fogga)

Note: This post is part of my Cooking Local project.

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Al Barza Restaurant

When I first moved to Dubai in 2007, there weren’t any restaurants (except maybe hole in the wall cafés) serving Emirati cuisine. So I started my Emirati cooking project to teach myself what local food could taste like. I say could because at the time, I had no idea if I was making the recipes right without having ever tasted the food.

Since 2007, a few Emirati restaurants serving local cuisine have opened their doors in Dubai (and Abu Dhabi) and it’s great to see. My cooking project gave me a little insight of the types and the flavors of dishes that were served and at my first Emirai restaurant (Al Fanar in Festival City – read my review here) I was pleased to find out that my Emirati cooking was pretty spot on.

Recently, I was invited to Al Barza restaurant, a new cafe on Beach Road serving Emirati food, for their UAE National Day celebrations. The restaurant is located across from the Dubai Zoo and underneath a Kandoora shop.

It was an evening event so the photos aren’t great but I wanted to capture as much of the food as possible. I hope I have described all the food accurately. Some dishes I had to ask about a few times as it was hard to understand some of the wait staffs’ accents.

My friend and I were seated outdoors on the restaurant’s terrace overlooking Beach Road. It was a beautiful evening to be outside – slightly on the cool side but I had a shawl so was happy enjoying the light sea breeze.

We were offered small cups of Arabic coffee upon being seated. Next came a small plate of dates drizzled with tahini (tastes like peanut butter) and a platter of chobab bread wtih Arabic pickles, olives, hummus, moutabel, and what I was told was Kraft cheese.

Chobab bread mezze platter

Dates Drizzled with Tahini

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The food was offered buffet style and we started off with the different types of salad. I’ve never been a fan of grape leaves salad but I always give the dish a try. Maybe one day I’ll end up liking it but something about the texture puts me off. I did enjoy the Fattoush-like salad and the basic rocket/arugula salad.

Grape Leaves Salad Appetizer

Arabic Salad (like Fattoush)

Hummus

There was also an appetizer called Harees Laham which looked like pancake batter – it is made of wheat flour mixed with ground meat.

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When I scanned the entree offerings, I was excited to see Jisheed (baby shark) as it was a dish I had been meaning to attempt for a while now (I even scope out the fish section of LuLu’s hypermarket on a regular basis because they sometimes sell baby shark). However, I just get skittish at the idea of cooking shark. Plus, I wonder if it’s a sustainable catch.

Regarding Jisheed, cookbook author Celia Al-Ansari writes:

Shark is plentiful throughout the UAE and is reasonably priced. A traditional belief amongst men is that fresh cooked shark will make them feel strong and masculine! Always buy the shark fresh from the market and ensure it is about the length of your arm – the longer the shark, the tougher it is. The market will clean the shark, de-head it and remove the skin and tail.

Usually this dish is accompanied by boiled white rice, sliced limes, sliced raw onion, radishes, garlic chives and dates if in season.

Interestingly, as I was speaking with the chairman of the restaurant group, he informed me that the “baby shark” used for this dish is not really the offspring of a shark but a fish-like shark. He said they call it “Wiled al Wiled” (just writing out phonetically what I heard) which translates as “son of the son.” Make any sense to anyone? I think I need to talk to a fisherman.

How did it taste? The shark is boiled, then the meat is shredded off the bone and simmered in Emirati spices. It’s then served over a bed of basmati rice. It tasted a bit like flaked tuna or flaked sardines and was nice with a squeeze of lemon.

Jisheed – Baby Shark Cooked with Emirati Spices

Some other dishes that I sampled included (I am using the spelling from the restaurant’s menu cards):  Chicken Biryani, Thareed Lamb (lamb stew layers with flat bread), Majboos Grilled Shrimp, Mandy Chicken, and Meat Salonah.

Many Emirati dishes were adapted from the Indian sub-continent – like biryani – but the Emirati combination of spices known as bezar is used.

Chicken Biryani

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Finally it was dessert time and my friend and I tasted a sample of each offering. We liked the Leqaimat (fried dough balls with sweet syrup) but our taste buds weren’t used to the flavors of the other desserts so one small spoonful to taste was enough for us.

Besided the Ranjeenah (made with flour and dates) pictured below, there was also Sago (tapioca pudding flavored with cardamom and possibly rosewater taste), and Assedet Bobar (a pumpkin puree dessert flavored with saffron and rosewater).

I can’t really describe the flavors. You’ll just have to try out these dishes for yourself one day if you haven’t already.

Ranjeenah

Happy 44th UAE National Day!

Disclosure: I enjoyed this complimentary dining experience as a guest of Al Barza restaurant but all views and opinions are my own.

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Al Barza Restaurant: Jumeirah 1, Beach Road, Opposite Dubai Zoo.  Paid street parking and valet parking available.  Telphone:  +971 04 343 5910. Website | Facebook | Twitter

When I started my Emirati cooking project in June 2008, almost three and a half years ago, it was so that I could learn more about the culture of the host country in which I was living. With a dearth of restaurants to choose from at the time (and I wasn’t even sure how authentic they […]

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I never did get back on track with my Emirati cooking, did I? Lamb Biryani was the last recipe I posted but I did get to observe a few home-cooked Emirati dishes (namely, Chicken Machboos and Balaleet) this past November. And recently, I went to an Emirati restaurant for the first time – Al Fanar […]

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Have you been watching the Summer Olympics? The UAE has never participated in the Winter Olympics but has participated in seven Summer Olympics starting with the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. This year, for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the UAE team comprised of 30 athletes and competed in the following sports: athletics (triple jump […]

The post Emirati Recipe: Samboosa (fried savory triangles) appeared first on Ginger and Scotch.

Sometime last year, I heard through the food buzz that there was a new Emirati cookbook released and I attempted to get my hands on a copy. I know I have been a real slacker in regards to my Emirati Cooking Experiments and I had hoped that obtaining a new cookbook would breathe some life […]

The post Emirati Cookbook Review: Sarareed (by Chef Khulood Atiq) & Emirati Recipe: Rubyan Moadam (Soaked Prawns) appeared first on Ginger and Scotch.

When I first moved to Dubai in 2007, there weren’t any restaurants (except maybe hole in the wall cafés) serving Emirati cuisine. So I started my Emirati cooking project to teach myself what local food could taste like. I say could because at the time, I had no idea if I was making the recipes […]

The post Celebrating the UAE’s 44th National Day at Al Barza Restaurant with Emirati Cuisine appeared first on Ginger and Scotch.

As part of my Cooking Local project to learn more about Emirati food and culture, I am attempting to cook through Celia Ann Brock-Al Ansari’s The Complete UAE Cookbook.

I have completed 8 recipes so far out of…oh…73. Crikey, at the rate I’m going, I might be old and withered before I’m finished.

Out of the 12 fish/seafood recipes, I have now completed 4. Only 8 more to go but some of them seem quite daunting. 

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I can’t help but think of biryani as the Indian equivalent of Chinese fried rice. Both dishes are made of, well, rice, and both are ingrained into their respective cultures.

Not surprisingly, biryani is quite a popular dish in Dubai and besides the obvious joints, can also be found in many buffet stations of hotels and restaurants. Unfortunately, this also means that it’s mass produced and often comes out dry at the end so I’ve never been a big fan.

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When I first moved here, almost four years ago, I used to ask this question a lot.

I soon stopped asking because I would get the same responses over and over. Either, “I don’t know,” or “Emirati food is in Emirati homes,” or “Local House in Bastakia.”

There are scores of Lebanese, Turkish, Moroccan, a few Iranian plus other Arab nations but local Emirati restaurants?

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First there was Breakfast + Lunch >> Brunch.

Now take Friday + Brunch >> Frunch.

If I were witty, I would write something here about logic and maybe even Venn diagrams. Alas, witty I am not. Just sarcastic and cynical.

Somewhere For Everyone

We were invited over for Frunch at the Radisson Blu, Dubai Media City and although it was not our first Frunch there, it was our first with the kids.

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