Spiced Ground Beef Gozleme with Maasdam

What is it about winter that makes me want to snack and eat meals consisting of sandwiches? A bite of this, a bit of that and pause; then start all over again. No, I don't want a plate of protein, veg and carbs. I want that leftover turkey coated in freshly cracked black pepper, slathered with whole grain mustard and stuffed into a cheesy toasted sandwich. Stuffed parathas? I'm down with that. Hawawshi? Yes to grease! Quesadillas? I'm not one to say no. So join me on my binge and make some gozleme stuffed with spiced ground beef and melted Maasdam. 

[This recipe was developed for Frico.]

Spiced Ground Beef Gozleme with Maasdam

3 cups of all-purpose flour 

3/4 of a standard 110g small yogurt cup

1 teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Water, as needed

6 slices of Maasdam cheese

2 tablespoons of butter

500 grams of ground beef

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon 

1/2 cup of finely chopped onions

1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh mint

1/2 cup of roughly chopped fresh coriander

1 teaspoon of black pepper

Salt, to taste

Melted butter, for cooking

Melt the butter in a large pan and sauté the onions until lightly caramelised then add the ground spices and stir for a minute before adding the ground beef. Season the mixture with salt and pepper then cook on medium heat until the beef cooks and browns. Stir in the lemon juice, fresh mint and coriander and set aside to cool. 

In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, yogurt and olive oil and knead until it comes together. If it is still dry, add a teaspoon of water at a time until it comes together. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth. Cover with a moist towel and set aside for 20-30 minutes. 

Take a small ball of the prepared dough, dust it with flour and roll it out into a circle. Add 2 large tablespoons of the beef mixture and cover with half a slice of Maasdam cheese. Coat the edges of the dough with a little water. 

Take the edges of the dough and begin pleating the edges bringing them together in the centre to seal the gozleme. Twist the pleated edges and pinch off the extra dough that has gathered. Place the newly sealed side on the bottom and press it to flatten with a light hand. Dust with flour and roll out into a circle. 

Heat a pan until hot and cook the gozleme on both sides brushing lightly with melted butter. Flip once or twice until both sides are cooked well. Serve hot. 

Guest Post: Matters of the Belly

I enjoy connecting with other Egyptian food bloggers, maybe it's because there aren't many of us; maybe because I can't seem to find enough Egyptian ladies interested in the kitchen the way I am.  I recently found another kindred spirit and thought I'd share. Noha Serageldin is new on the scene. Starting in August, she's already got a bunch of posts for you to consume and her pleasant, friendly voice comes through -  genuine, honest with a constant urge to learn. Support her on her journey and connect with her directly on her blog Matters of the Belly, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter & on Pinterest. Here's Noha below. Make sure to try out her recipe. 

I have a borderline obsessive love for eggplants. So much so, that I seriously contemplated calling my blog ‘The Anxious Aubergine’ before settling for ‘Matters of the Belly’. I kid you not. There is something quite magical, I find, about how its spongy and seemingly inedible interior in the raw state transforms into this incredibly creamy, sweet and earthy flesh once cooked correctly. As I mentioned before on my blog, I was one of those weird kids who always loved  vegetables... growing up, just the mention of Moussaka or Fattah for lunch always got me excited. 

Not much has changed since then… if anything, my love for vegetables has continued to grow as I have… and now, I am always on the lookout for new ways to enjoy them. Especially eggplants. Technically, the eggplant is a fruit from the berry family. I know, shocking right? However, I refuse to call anything a fruit if it cannot be part of a fruit salad (you heard me, tomatoes), so I shall proceed to refer to it as a vegetable. Go ahead, tell the veggie police… I like to live on the edge.

This recipe is inspired by a classic Turkish dish called ‘Imam Bayildi’, which translates to ‘the Priest fainted’. Legend has it that a Turkish Imam fainted when his new wife prepared him this dish; some say it was because of how delicious it was, others claim that what caused him to faint was the fact that the dish used up all the olive oil in his dowry. You see, traditionally, the eggplants are meant to be fried, and anyone who has ever cooked with eggplant before knows that it is a SPONGE for oil, and sucks up obscene amounts if you allow it. As tempting as that sounds, I choose not to fry them, for the sake of my expanding waistline. Also, the original recipe is vegetarian, whereas in my version I add minced beef to the stuffing, which is how we have always made it in our household.

As it always is with family recipes, this one has evolved and changed each time I make it, resulting in a version I can proudly call my own, yet still reminds me of the Imam Bayildis of my childhood. Our family cook of over 30 years, whose name is Iman, liked to joke that this dish was named after her, and called it Iman Bayildi. I still call it that, and it never fails to give me a warm, fuzzy tingle in my heart each time I do.

Iman Bayildi (stuffed Eggplant)

Prep time: 20 min          

Cook time: 25-30

Servings: 2-3

Ingredients:

2 medium/4 small eggplants

250g minced beef

3 tbsp olive oil plus extra for drizzling

1 medium onion, finely chopped 

3 cloves garlic, minced

2/3 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp cardamom

½ tsp sumak

3 tbsp pomegranate molasses

¼ cup raisins or sultanas

Salt & pepper to taste

250ml tomato puree (I use store bought passata, but any tomato sauce will do)

2 tbsp pine nuts

½ tsp ghee (optional)

Fresh basil or mint leaves for serving

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Wash & dry the eggplants, then slice each lengthwise in half. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin, leaving a 2cm border along the edge (as shown in photo). If you are using smaller eggplants, you may leave the skin on if you like, but mine were on the larger side so the skin could be too tough and bitter. 

Using a spoon, scoop out about a third of the flesh of each eggplant half, then set aside. Chop up the scooped up flesh into small pieces (to be used in the filling).

In a large non-stick pan over medium heat, add the olive oil and onions. Cook until softened, about 5min. Add garlic, cook until fragrant, about 1min. Add the minced beef and cook until colour changes. 

Add the chopped up eggplant flesh and the spices, cook until the beef begins to brown. Add the pomegranate molasses & raisins, season to taste and remove from the heat.

Using a spoon, stuff the eggplant halves with the mixture. In a baking tray, pour in the tomato puree/sauce, and arrange the stuffed eggplants on top. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the eggplant is soft and slightly golden. 

If the stuffing is browning too fast, you may cover the dish loosely with some foil.

Meanwhile, in a small non-stick pan over low heat, melt the ghee if using and add the pine nuts. Cook, stirring continuously until golden. You may do the same without the ghee (dry toasting) if you wish, but the ghee just gives it the most amazing flavour. 

When the eggplant is ready, remove from the oven and sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts and basil/mint leaves. Serve immediately.

Samosa, Sambusak

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

Thinking back, samosas may have been the first food to confuse me, a never-ending love affair that was tedious to understand. Never knowing what I should call them when chatting with people hailing from different places, never understanding just what were to go in them, I went on a mental hunt quite early on in life to find out just what a samosa was.

Stuffed with curried potatoes and peas then folded into tight triangles, these were the samosa I was first acquainted with. Popping them straight onto my tongue from the bubbling oil without a second thought would have me letting off the steam with my gaping mouth between grins and greasy stained fingers from the turmeric stirred into this magic mix. These were general fixtures in my Indian grandmother’s house served with a side of mint chutney and later, dominated Ramadan as a simple accompaniment to soup in my Egyptian mother’s home.

At many oriental iftar buffets and at homes of friends from the Levant, I’d spot these little lovelies, shiny skinned and crisp to the tooth, next to others — soft half moons and the doughy tetrahedrons, sported in many contrasting pastry crusts and fleshy fillings to suit the various cravings of those breaking their fast. If I had given in to my whims, I don’t think I would have eaten anything during Ramadan but fat stacks of these Indian-influenced vegetable samosas and Lebanese crescent-shaped sambusak, filled with ground beef and made lively with pine nuts. In fact, I enjoy these pastries, Asian and Middle Eastern alike, so much that I would probably eat them in secret and in defiance if the Middle East decided to adopt Somali group Al Shabaab’s fatwa banning samosas that, according to them, are too western and resemble the Christian Holy Trinity.

Believed to have originated in Central Asia before the 10th century, the Uzbeks still call it somsa, similar to its original name, samsa. The Iranians, as my friend in Malaysia introduced me, call them sambusa these days, but were once recorded in Persian history as “sanbosag”. Similar to the pasties that were eaten by tin miners in Cornwall for their easy handling, samosas were also thought to be injected into Indian culture by the Muslim traders and soldiers who carried them in saddlebags on long journeys after preparing them, many at a time, during their rest stops.

This is a simple recipe, given that you’re fine with the heat of frying. In essence, all you need to do is begin preparing early, make large quantities at a time and freeze them in between layers of baking paper to avoid them sticking to one another as they love to do. There are recipes for all kinds of dough and the filling may be used to stuff your own homemade dough. I chose the easy way out with these store-bought wrappers because I can use Ramadan as an excuse for a little laziness as most of us do.

Beef & Pine Nut Samosa
You’ll need:
30-35 samosa wrappers
500 grams of ground beef
1 large onion
2-3 cloves of garlic, depending on strength
¼ cup of beef stock
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of cumin
¼ cup of pine nuts
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large egg + 1 teaspoon of flour, beaten to make a paste

Keep the samosa wrappers covered with a damp towel while preparing the beef to keep them soft. In a large pan on medium-high heat, add the onions and garlic until fragrant and translucent then the ground beef. Stir the beef into the onions and garlic until combined then cook, stirring every few minutes, until browned. Add the cinnamon, cumin, salt and pepper and mix then pour in the beef stock and stir in the pine nuts. Lower your heat and leave to cook until the stock has been absorbed. Turn off your heat and leave to cool.

At the bottom of each samosa pastry strip, brush the bottom of the side closest to you with egg wash then fold over the pastry from the opposite corner to create an open-sided triangle. Spoon some of the beef filling (1 full teaspoon to 1½ teaspoons) into the pocket you’ve created. Tuck the filling into the pocket and fold it over more than once until you reach the end of the wrapper. Before sealing, tuck in any protruding samosa paper then seal the edge by brushing with egg wash. Repeat with the rest of the wrappers. Freeze the ones you won’t fry for later at this stage. Deep fry in hot vegetable oil (not olive oil) for a minute then remove when golden and crispy. Do not crowd your oil with samosas to allow each one adequate space. Drain well from the oil before serving.

On voting and sausages

As featured in The Daily News Egypt

There is no greater way to describe how I feel after voting other than that I feel like an idiot.

Did I know any of these people I voted for? No. Had I even heard of them before? No. Could I find any decent reading material about what these people are trying to bring closer to me? No. All I knew was as follows:

All the aunties and uncles were telling me to vote for specific people. It didn’t matter who they were, what they were doing or how they made their money — “Just go and vote! Trust me, we don’t want the people who’ll put the veil on us!” Fear and agitation filled many living rooms I’d visit.

My mom’s housekeeper of 20 years instead voted for the people that have helped her area for several years by providing them with sugar, rice and everyday necessities. My mother-in-law’s housekeeper voted for the people who had the longest history and were “organized enough to do something with this country.” Different reasons, same vote.

All that was asked of me by other people was to remember symbols. That’s how you’d find them on the list. Some of the most educated people in this country had resorted to picking out “trusted” symbols, spreading the message from one social circle to the next; and depending on which social circles you belonged to, the symbol you were to vote for would reach you by word of mouth.

This was the absurd subliminal message being sent my way: if you vote for those who use kitchen appliances as symbols they’re more likely to force you to cover up but if you vote for those with hardware tools, they’ll probably try to fix the economy.

Entering the polling station, a man leering over me grinned upon seeing my first tick and immediately pointed out where my next tick would be. He assumed that from the way I look, I would naturally be voting this way. How disappointing that we have all become stereotypes to one another.

Despite feeling like an imbecile, I walked out happy to embrace the sights and smells of a winter morning in my beloved Cairo, a morning so sunny and bright with a spirited breeze trying to weave itself through my tightly-bunned hair. The man calling out on a megaphone that four satchels of garlic are for LE 10 behind two younger boys carrying warm baladi bread, an elderly lady peddling socks in front of a store stacked with jars of golden honey, the Ministry of Agriculture’s outlets lined up for unaware consumers to buy the unaware farmers’ produce — all reminding me of how delicately balanced this country is, holding on to hope and ever-creating chaotic beauty in such coarseness. How will we ever organize this country and if we do, will we lose our charm?

In times of confusion, it’s comforting to turn to food, especially a dish so with one on the street. Asked over and over by the adults that act like adults in our family to refrain from midnight runs to get street food, I chose to pick up fresh Egyptian sogo’, or sausage, this time and conjure up a recipe as close to the fiery sogo’ sold at places that should place a warning sign on the door.

If you too are being nagged about devouring mystery meat in the street, invite your friends over for a pseudo-street-food party. If you’re lucky, someone will bring in the real stuff and rave about your recipe while your gorge on their street-bought oil-drenched deliciousness.

Fiery Egyptian Sausage

You'll need:
500 grams of Egyptian sausage
½ a tablespoon of ghee
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 medium red onion, finely diced
2 teaspoons of tomato paste
2 cups of water
1 squirt of lemon juice
1 large yellow pepper, finely diced
1 teaspoon of cumin powder
½ teaspoon of cinnamon powder
½ teaspoon of chili powder
1-2 medium red chili peppers, thinly sliced
1 handful of parsley, chopped

Begin by separating the sausage links. In a large pan, heat the ghee on high heat and sear the sausage for 3 minutes until browned. Remove and set aside. Lower to medium heat and using the same pan, add the onions, yellow pepper, chilli peppers and stir to release flavor. Add the cinnamon, cumin and chilli powder to the mixture and allow to cook for a minute. Spoon in the tomato paste and cook off for 30 seconds to break the acidity. Add the water and bring your sauce to a rapid boil. Add the sausage back into the sauce, reduce the heat, add the lemon juice and allow to simmer gently until the sauce is reduced by half. This should take about 20 minutes. Garnish with parsley. Serve hot with warm baladi bread to scoop up the sauce.

Cubist Brisket. Fear me, Pablo!

Hello. I've got two little monkeys in the house that I'm constantly feeding but for some reason, I'm not posting at all. The "for some reason" is really because I was lazy and cooking unblogworthy things. I really need to snap out of this blogfunk. This time around, I'm posting something that my sister thinks can never look good in photos: Beef! Or as she calls it "food food", because to my sister "food food" is anything that isn't sugary. So here I am trying to make her believe that "food food" might not look all that bad in photos. Okay, maybe a little. For those of you who are curious, blogworthy things are beautiful things that come out of our kitchen that are so fun in your mouth that you want to create a mini-you who isn't grossed out by chewed food to go in there and party. So today, I took out the mediocre meat hanging out in our freezer, the carrots everyone is too bored to eat and the mushrooms we'll forget about and made something wonderful out of them.  

On another note, we went to the amusement park today and I didn't find any fried ice cream. My heart died a little. Anyone crazy enough to have a good recipe? 

Cubist Brisket
You'll need:

1 kg of beef, cubed. [You could go ahead with a not so fancy kind. It won't make that much of a difference to have a good cut over a tougher cut.]

2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

2 onions, finely minced

1 cup of hot water + 1/2 cup just in case

1 tablespoon of sugar

1.5 teaspoons of salt (Use less if you want. Or a lot more like me. Ha!)

1.5 teaspoons of garlic powder + 1 pinch
1/2 teaspoon of onion powder

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

1/2 teaspoon of white pepper

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

2.5 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste, dissolved in 1 cup of hot water

1 cube of beef bouillon, dissolved in 1 cup of hot water

200 grams of white button mushrooms

3 medium sized carrots, roughly diced

Start by combining all your spices in a small bowl to create a seasoning mix. Begin searing your meat. Wait until the pan really, really, really hot then add your tablespoon of olive oil and sear the meat on all sides until nice and brown. Don't be lazy with the searing, it really adds to the color of your sauce as well. Remove from the heat and get a stock pot or dutch oven ready. Place the meat in the stock pot along with the flour. On low heat, toss the beef cubes in the flour for a minute. Add the carrots and minced onions and toss for another two-three minutes until it basically starts to look a little unpleasant. Haha. Add your total 3 cups of water including the bouillon and tomato paste. Add all your spices. Begin preheating your oven to 180 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes. Stir for a few seconds until it's all mixed together. Leave on high heat until the broth boils then turn down your heat to the lowest possible and leave to simmer gently for 40 minutes.

While it simmers, quarter your mushrooms and sautee them in a pan with a drop of oil and a pinch of garlic powder. Here's a photo of the mushrooms in black and white to prettify the photo because prettifying is fun. 

 

Take your dutch oven and place it in the oven or transfer the contents from your stock pot to an ovenproof casserole dish with a lid. If you want a thinner sauce, add the extra half cup of water. 

Leave to simmer in your covered dish for half an hour then add the mushrooms and leave to simmer again for another hour. Serve with something that sops up the sauce. Our pick was mashed potatoes and Lord of the Rings. This is a really good dish to make a day early. It heats really well in the oven and it only makes the sauce richer. Until next time, ole!