Poached Pears in Spiced Karkadeh

There was a minor issue troubling me concerning a certain bottle of karkadeh lounging lazily in our fridge. No one wanted to drink it. We had both had our fair share of it in Ramadan and this bottle menacingly promised to stay until next Ramadan. I couldn't pour it down the sink because I carefully carry Karkadeh all the way from Cairo. It would be a little more than insulting to my poor suitcase to throw it away. So today, I had two pears left and decided to poach them in a spiced karkadeh. It turned well.  Really well.  

Below is my column featuring this recipe in The Daily News Egypt dated Saturday, 15th, 2011.

This week in Egypt carries the weight of crisp white cotton shrouds and the shiny wooden caskets of those we lost.

Silence descends as I listen to the news, to the wailing of women at the morgue abruptly deserted in life by their sons. I, stunned by the recent events at Maspero, position my fingers on the keyboard to make my mark, pound out my thoughts into 140 characters on the Internet. Three days in, it never comes and instead, a rising fear throttles my voice.

A Spanish proverb springs to mind - don't speak unless you can improve on the silence. I stay quiet but is the stagnantly comfortable Egypt I left behind three years ago gone or does it remain?

Throughout the past 8 months, I have often become despondent – my faith slowly faltering until I could only see loss in the promotion of new ideas revolving around our cuisine, our food culture and in keeping our land clean, away from the chemical companies who, once producing agent orange and stain-resistant carpets, are now feeding us genetically modified foods and controlling a high percentage of American seed. Since almost complete domination of the American markets, these companies view Africa as an ideal spot to continue to bring close the complete control of the world's food supply.

How can we protect ourselves let alone the well-being of our farmers? How many of us are educated enough and more importantly, interested enough to be aware of the dangers concealing themselves behind the pretty picture of strong and vibrant corn fields? How many of us know about giant agri-business, corporate farming and how it's run?

What I'm sure about is that we will start seeing many smaller farms looking to gain a place in the huge agricultural market instead of competing with the big boys. Our agriculture will be sold off and owned by others because of something as simple as selling the rights to our old seed to create a new genetically modified one.

And what of the homeless children? If they aren't going to school or learning anything at public school for that matter, will we leave them to grow into glue-sniffing, prostitute-peddling adults or what we now like to call “thugs”? With the number of NGOs in Egypt, I'm surprised that not one has created a cooking school to teach homeless children and give them careers, turning them away from the grime of fixing cars for almost nothing or worse.

The kitchen will teach almost anyone work ethic – show up on time, stay sober, keep clean, overcome anger and you're set. Sadly, we are not so concerned about our homeless just as we aren't about our farmers. Egyptian food industry plays no part in helping out the community, away from serving free food during Ramadan and if they are, no one knows about it.

The upcoming generations need skills or they'll end up in the street, fighting for a mere semblance of a life and dying an untimely death. Again.

I, like many Egyptians, have ideas but don't know what to do with them anymore or where to start so instead, I sharpen my own skills, hoping that one day I'll be able to do more good with them than cook in my own kitchen and talk to anyone who'll listen.

Trying, as ever, to come up with better ideas for the ingredients presented to us in Egypt, this pear recipe put a skip in my step until noticing, only two nights later, that most Egyptians won't notice my pure and organic pear, steeped in deep red, just like they aren't noticing the blood-stained sidewalks because they choose not to look. For what it's worth, try this out and share in this week's bitterness tinged with a sweet glimpse of hope.

Poached Pears in Spiced Karkadeh

You'll need:

2 medium sized pears
3 cups of pre-made karkade
1 cup of water 
2 cinnamon sticks
3 star anise 
1.5 tablespoons of candied mixed peel

Peel your pears leaving the stalk on. If you prefer, you can halve the pears through the center. Pour the karkade and water into a large pot. Add the cinnamon and star anise. Bring to a quick boil and reduce the heat immediately. Allow it to reach a gentle simmer. Plop your pears and candied peel into the simmering karkade. Cover the pot. Turn your pears occassionally to make sure they're fully immersed in the liquid. Cook for 15-18 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove from the pot. Serve hot with warm karkadeh or cold with some nuts and ice cream. 

FEATURED ON FOODBUZZ TOP 9 (OCTOBER 11, 2011)

Internet Withdrawal Dessert Goodness

Dear Internet,

You left our home for days on end and worried us. We thought you wouldn't come back. Then, when you did come back, you didn't bring your wireless wife with you, which made us worry even more. Would you really make us share a cable? Really? We thought we would have to set up camp at Coffee Bean and ask nicely for them to adopt us. We thought many nasty thoughts but thankfully those have stopped now that you're back with your temperamental wife, Wireless. But do you know the trouble both of you have caused? I haven't been able to update my blog and post my photos and they got sad and lonely when they were separated, not to mention scared. Shame on you for making my invisible friends worry. I love you. Don't leave. Please.

Love and fairy dust,

Addicted2U

Sneak peak:

My homecheflings, we're about to share an easy experience together. An experience that I haven't yet named. One that doesn't involve scary thoughts like bad Internet connections, ironing your own clothes and invisibility cloaks. Instead, think happy thoughts. Thoughts that involve cinnamon, chocolate, butter (and a possible heart attack but you never read all the way to that part in the contract). So here we go. You'll need:

1 can of condensed milk

1 teaspoon of dark unsweetened cocoa powder

Half a pack of digestive biscuits

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

60 grams of butter

Around 12-15 almonds, blanched, peeled and roughly chopped (Find out how here.)

Such ugly little things.

Of course, you can always just buy peeled almonds and chop them up but then you're no fun and you're missing out on the joy of almond skin popping. Blitz your digestives in a food processor or get a sandwich bag, put your biscuits in it, seal it, and pound away your rage. The sounds of the food processor makes up for the pounding rage so I'm sticking with that. 

Add your cinnamon and your butter. The smell. The smell. The smell. The smell. Joy.

Place your biscuit mix in a tart or springform tin and press down firmly into the bottom and sides of tin. Pack it. Tightly. You don't want a loose base. (No pun intended but haha!) Now, refrigerate your base for 15 minutes. In the meantime, get a saucepan. Pour one can of condensed milk into your saucepan and put it on low heat for a few minutes - I didn't time it so maybe 2-4 minutes. Don't let it boil. Add 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder and whisk away until it's super smooth with no lumps, clumps and unsightly bumps. Turn off the heat and add the almonds, now all chopped, into your chocolate condensed milk goodness. Stir. Mix until it's all combined.  

Take the biscuit base out of the fridge and pour your liquid mixture all over it until it's uniform and touching the edges. Put it back in the fridge and leave it for at least an hour to an hour and a half before slicing, serving, sighing and smiling. (Mine melted quite a bit because of the humidity.)

If you come up with a name for this, I'm listening! Happy weekend to you. 

The Puffins: beautiful little pancake muffins

I don't know if you've ever heard of these before but I hadn't and the lazy part of me got so happy it literally jumped up and made these the minute I saw them. Conveniently, it was also morning. 


Pancake muffins. What can I say? Pros: 1. You don't have to sit and flip your pancakes one by one. 2. It's super fast to make. 3. Everyone gets to eat at the same time 4. You can substitute the chocolate chips with just about anything or make them plain. 5. They'll make you happy. They'll make your kids happy. They'll make your whoever happy. No need to elaborate any more than this really AND I've got a lot of cleaning to do today so be happy with photos and a recipe my little friendlings and run along. And please, please, please... try these.

Mini Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins: (Adapted from Bakerella. Thank you, Essmat, for introducing me.)

1 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of sugar
2/3 cup of buttermilk (I used a buttermilk substitute - 2/3 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar left to stand for 5 to 10 minutes)
1 egg
2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup (I used pancake syrup because I had it around. I'd love to try this with honey or vanilla.)
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Generously grease mini muffin pan. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk. In another bowl, stir buttermilk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until combined. Stir in your chocolate chips and keep a few to sprinkle on the top. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes. (My chocolate chips sadly didn't stay on top.)

Makes 24 mini pancake muffins. Let cool slightly and remove from the pan. You may need to use a toothpick around the edges to separate the pancake muffins from the pan. Serve immediately with warmed butter, maple syrup, pancake syrup, chocolate sauce, your call really. You really should dip these in something. They are, after all, meant to be dipped. And one of the best things about them is how they slip right out of the pan. I love things that don't make me scrub to get stuff out.