Finding My Groove | Eggplant, Salami + Gouda Sandwich

Having a baby and not wanting to cook came hand in hand. There were many things that I wanted to do in the little time I had when I wasn't carrying my child like, and I say this in all seriousness, showering. It took me a while to get back into it away from the cooking I had to get done for work every single day.  

We were faced with an issue at home. Do we really want to eat what I cooked for work? Do we just order in or do we find that little reserve of energy we had left to actually throw something together in less than a half hour? In the first year of our child's life, I don't think we really enjoyed any food. It was all for survival. We ate late, we ate crap but we ate.  

Things slowly started coming together. I started showering more often. I began looking less sallow. My cooking for work became routine and we started cooking things we wanted to eat; and it all began with soups, salads and sandwiches. Endless combinations, fulfilling flavors. Quick to eat and fun to make. Next time you find yourself in a rut, make a sandwich. This recipe was developed for Frico.    

Rustic Eggplant, Salami & Gouda Sandwich 

2 slices of gouda cheese
6 slices of eggplant 
3 cloves of garlic
4 slices of salami
4 large button mushrooms, sliced
4-6 fresh mint leaves 
1 cup of deseeded Kalamata olives
1/2 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
A handful of rocket leaves
1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 thick slices of bread
1/4 cup of olive oil 
Black pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

Blend the Kalamata olives with garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of olive oil until smooth then set aside. 

Heat a frying pan then pour in the olive oil. Pan-fry the slices of eggplant after seasoning with salt and black pepper until golden on both sides. Remove from the oil then sauté the mushrooms in the same pan, seasoning with salt and black pepper. 

Toast the bread then coat with a thick layer of the prepared olive tapenade. Add the rocket leaves, slices of gouda, fried eggplant, salami and sautéed mushrooms. Top with mint leaves and freshly cracked black pepper. Serve. 

Note: this can also be assembled and toasted in a panini press. 

Where I've Been + Mushroom Rice

How long is a long time? When I finally find time alone with myself I interrogate blogger me, "Isn't it time you update your blog, Sarah?"

Every week this happens; and as each passes this long time extends. A week, a month, a year. But what happens when you almost don't feel how quickly that long time went by? I'll tell you what happens. You get stuck; you have an excuse but then you have none.

My last blog post exhausted me. By then, my round belly extended past my newly pudgy feet, themselves resembling nothing of what I know my feet to be. My bum would have to be pushed back by bending my ever-expanding hips to make room for the plate in the overhead shots I'd have to take. I was stuck with a deadline - a deadline to deliver forty pasta recipes for a client and one baby for us. 

My joints were creaking. My pelvis was loose. My cravings had never been so real and I hadn't cooked so much pasta in my life. There was just no room for blogging. I was unable to move without having every fibre of me groan for relief and I truly looked like Michelin Man minus the power of Michelin. 

Soon after, our baby arrived (hooray!) and I crazily took on even more work. Why? Because it afforded me the ability to work from home without having to do either of the options I didn't want to do: 1. Leave my child to someone else, anyone else. 2. Bring her into restaurant kitchens and meetings about restaurants' lacking menu options.

So I worked alone and I worked from home thus becoming a stay at home mom who operated on minimal sleep and copious cups of coffee (well, as many as I was allowed to consume while nursing).  

Cook in the morning, take photos of said cooked item while my child threw onions, lemons or whatever else prop I was using AT ME; then later edit and write recipes at night without sneaky little hands trying to pull out my laptop keys. Memorable times.  

My situation lately has shifted. I have more time for myself in the morning and so I have more time to share what I've been up to. Now, I don't have enough time just yet to create recipes especially for Buttered-Up these days but it's good enough for me to be able to share some of my work with you. So, let's begin! Here's a recipe that was created for Knorr. 

Mushroom and Onion Rice

You'll need: 

200 grams button mushrooms, sliced

2 tablespoons of ghee

1 onion, sliced

2 spring onions, sliced

1 cube of Knorr vegetable bouillon + 3 cups of hot water or 3 cups of broth

1.5 cups of basmati rice

½ teaspoon of black pepper

Salt to taste

Dissolve Knorr’s vegetable bouillon in the hot water and stir. (Leave this step out if you're using real broth.)

Melt 1 tablespoon of ghee in a large pot.

Sauté the sliced mushrooms on high heat for 3 minutes then set aside. In the same pot, melt another tablespoon of ghee and cook the onions until they caramelize and reach a deep golden color.

Add the mushroom to the caramelized onions then add the prepared stock/broth and sliced spring onions. Stir on low heat for 2 minutes until the onions release their color into the stock.

Add the rice then season with salt and pepper. Allow the rice to reach a rapid boil on high heat then lower the heat and cover the pot allowing the rice to cook for 20-25 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the covered pot on the stove for another 10 minutes. Serve.

Spiced Banana & Date Loaf

Yum  
I never liked bananas growing up. On the rare occasion where I would be subjected to drinking them blended with some milk, my stomach would turn, my face would contort in a grimace and I would feel uneasy for the remainder of the morning. As I progressed little by little with age, I began to enjoy bananas but had found that first there were conditions that must be met. The banana must not have formed golden pockets of ripeness in its cream-colored surface. The banana must not be too sweet. The banana must hold itself if I attempt to poke it with my finger. Poor banana. So many rules.  

My relationship with bananas began to improve as an adult while living in Malaysia with a husband who was away on a business trip. Saddened by the thought that I would have to dispose of bananas that did not meet my criteria for eating, I chose to bake them into a cake for the first time. I ate it all. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. 2 full days of banana cake eating left me at peace with the idea that maybe I've grown to accept that which I chose to lock away in my "Ew" closet. 

Today, I'm sharing a recipe that will stick around for a long time in this household. Mixing an old favorite in dates and a new favorite in bananas, this cake turned out better than I would have ever thought. Slightly caramelly and packed with the warmth of cinnamon and nutmeg, the banana has finally found a permanent place in our home.

 
Spiced Banana & Date Loaf
You'll need:

300 grams of self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
140 grams of pitted and chopped dates
115 grams of caster sugar 
155 ml of full fat milk
2 eggs
200 grams of mashed bananas
75 ml of vegetable oil
loaf tin
baking paper 

Icing:
1 cup of icing sugar 
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of milk 

Heat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius. In a large mixing bowl and with a hand mixer, beat the sugar, vanilla extract and eggs for 2 minutes until thickened and fluffy. Add the bananas, cinnamon and nutmeg and blend then add half of the flour and all of the baking soda with the full amount of milk. Mix on medium speed then add the second half of the flour with the oil and whisk until all blended. Add your chopped dates and fold them into your batter with a wooden spoon then pour into a loaf tin lined with baking paper. Bake for 50 minutes or until done when tested with a knife. Remove from the oven and cool before serving. To store, keep your loaf covered to avoid drying it out. 

For the icing: In a small bowl, mix together to icing sugar, milk and vanilla. If you'd like a thicker icing, eliminate one tablespoon of milk. Drizzle the icing over the entire loaf or set aside and drizzle per serving.

Hot Cinnamon Drumsticks

Now that I'm working with a regular schedule like most people (which I haven't done in 7 years), it is not a matter of choice anymore that I make food days ahead to snack on during work hours. At first I tried to do the apple/banana & nut butter thing. I ate raw almonds in bulk. I drank and drank and drank herbal tea. But all day? No, thank you. There's only so much you can take before you hear your insides wail, telling tales of personal tragedy, aching for grease. 

For a few days, I ordered what I would call nothing else but crap with the 21 year olds at the office but in reality, my body at 30 does not feel like it's 21. 

Maybe it should. Maybe I'm not doing enough. Maybe I should. 

So I started trying. I had already managed to go for 2 months without refined sugar, honey & yeast (which is a story I should tell in the next post). This had to be the next level - maintaining what I had already started with a few exceptions here and there. 

At this stage, I'm doing okay. No more crap. Clean eating. Happy body. Sort of self-satisfied me. Oh & here's a recipe that I like a lot: 

Hot Cinnamon Drumsticks
You'll need:

1 kg of chicken drumsticks
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup of vegetable oil + 3 tablespoons for cooking
1/4 cup of honey
1 tablespoon of mustard
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1.5 teaspoon of chili powder
2.5 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
250 ml of chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
Salt to taste

Excluding the chicken drumsticks, beat the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Add the chicken and marinate for at least 8-12 hours.

Place a large frying pan on the stove and heat until medium hot and separate the chicken drumsticks into three batches.

For the first batch, brown on all sides then add approximately 80 ml of chicken stock and lower the heat. Cook for around 10-12 minutes until the chicken stock dries up entirely & the chicken is tender & nicely glazed.

Continue to turn the drumsticks to gain even color for another 1-2 minutes on medium heat.

Repeat with the next two batches. Allow the chicken to rest before serving.

Garlic Confit

At the soft opening of Chef's Market, we were given a giveaway bag - embossed wooden spoons, a copy of the menu and closest to my heart, a little jar of garlic confit paste. I used it all - in grilled cheese sandwiches, the simmering molokheyya on my stove, vinaigrette, pasta, winter soups and hummus dip. It was my companion, tender and fragrant, adding that extra bit of oomph when time was not on my side.

A little saddened at its end, I washed the jar and put it away hoping that one morning, I'll get up and remember to make that garlic confit, golden, nutty and sweet, like its predecessor. 

Today was the day. I didn't make it into a paste this time preferring to keep the plump cloves intact, submerged in the oil that flaunted its new caramelized notes, tucked away safely in the same jar. My garlic confit jar. 

A thank you to the chefs at Chef's Market. Good stuff. 

Garlic Confit
You'll need:
1.5 cups of peeled garlic
2 cups of vegetable oil
3 black peppercorns
4 white peppercorns

Place the garlic and peppercorns in a pot.
Pour the oil over your garlic and pepper mix.
Cook over low heat for 40 to 45 minutes or until your garlic is soft and you have reached your desired color.
Store chilled, submerged in the remaining oil. 

Quick Fix: Mushrooms on Toast

This is not a fancy recipe. It does not require much effort and takes little time to make. Comfort food that puts me right back in my mom's living room in the early 90s, that makes me want to dig my teeth into mediocre toast. This is breakfast, lunch or dinner. 

Scallion Cream Mushrooms on Toast

You'll need:

150 grams of button mushrooms, quartered

35 grams of scallions, sliced
100 ml of light cream
1/4 of a large lemon's zest
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A pinch of chopped parsley
A good drizzle of olive oil
2 slices of toasted bread (Use good bread if you have some.)

Cook the mushrooms over high heat to retain their moisture. Don't stir much at first to give them color. Once their color begins to change, add the scallions and toss. Cook for around 30 seconds. Pour in the cream and turn down the heat. Immediately after pouring the cream, add your lemon zest and season with salt and pepper. Add some chopped parsley if you'd like. Give it all a quick stir and turn off your heat. Pile over toasted bread while hot.    

Granitas for Summer's End

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

My sweet tooth was a late bloomer with a so-so desire to occasionally inhale shortbread biscuits, chocolate mousse and carrot cake — in that order of preference. Away from those, there was little that captured my attention.

I was the child at the party that might forgo a slice of birthday cake topped with a clean cut of the marzipan superhero’s head. I’m still the person at the wedding who really doesn’t want any sharbat, who’d rather not have the sugar-coated almonds offered when a baby is born, who’d be a dull partner at a cupcake shop.

As I grew older and gave way to my appetite, my sugar cravings leaned mostly toward the frozen kind: ice cream, popsicles, sorbet (which comes from the Arabic word sharbat), semifreddo, granita, and recently, ais kacang, the Malaysian shaved ice dessert with peanuts, sweet corn, red beans and a generous drizzle of thick condensed milk.

These frozen desserts stand out as distinct memories:

1. the, unapproved-by-mom strawberry popsicle of my Cairene childhood summer in 1991, sold in a clear plastic tube that you’d have to dig for in your neighborhood grocer’s aging deep freezer that smelled like cheese. Nothing was more artificial, but with the thrill of eating it behind my mother’s back in the corner of our building’s courtyard, right under the balcony where she sat, nothing was ever sweeter.

2. the crema gelato I ate in Rome in 1995 after one of many pizzas. I am still on the hunt for its equal and being 11 at the time, I cannot for the life of me remember where I ate it.

3. the moment I realized that my date who had taken me to Ramses Hilton’s Windows on the World in the early 2000s was not the man for me when he asked, me already half-way through my bitter lemon sorbet, why they were “serving ice cream in the middle of dinner”.

4. fried ice cream and caramel sauce with my dad as the ceremonious closing to our Chinese dinner; later the memory resurfacing as I sat alone at Genting Highlands theme park with my own freshly fried ice cream, cold in the center, looking up at my husband and step-kids screaming from the top of a crazy ride.

5. walking into Stavolta, the gelato store in Maadi, and taking a moment to happily embrace the fact that we Cairenes had a place that was finally using up the ingredients around us to create among their flavors ones that taste like the many pleasant smells of Egypt: sweet-smelling guavas bursting from the cup, karkade scoops that are delicate and could easily replace our traditional cold jug of karkade.

Now today, I didn’t have enough cream to make ice cream and I didn’t have an ice cream maker to pull off the smoothest sorbet so instead, I made a granita — essentially effortless except for the fact that you need to be at home for a few hours to get this done. Granitas can be dressed up or down to use as you please. Your guests will be thankful for being served this on a hot summer day and you can use the liquid you prefer to make it — fruit juice, coffee or one of those stronger drinks for adults only. It’s rustic, it’s textural and it melts on your tongue. Experiment with the basic idea – blend, freeze, rake — to find your balance and to determine how coarse you like it. This particular granita brings with it notes of the coming fall and scents of a warm carrot cake.

Orange-Carrot Granita
You’ll need:
450 grams of carrots, peeled
300 ml of fresh orange juice
300 ml of cocktail juice, unsweetened
2 drops of orange blossom water
A small piece of ginger, peeled, around 3 cm
¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of ground cloves
3 tablespoon of honey

Finely dice the peeled carrots and the ginger. Throw them into a blender. Add the orange juice and cocktail juice then pulse making sure your blender is sealed well. Add the honey, ground cinnamon and orange blossom water then blend once more until smooth.

Strain the mixture using a fine mesh strainer then pour it into a shallow baking dish. After pouring, your mixture should be around 2.5-3 cm thick. If it’s thicker than that, it will take a much longer time to freeze. Place your baking dish in the freezer then freeze, removing it from the freezer after 45 minutes to rake the mixture with a fork. Repeat this step every half an hour after that. Try to avoid scratching the bottom of your baking dish with a fork. Don’t forget the corners because they harden quickly. The final texture should be fine, fluffy and light. Mine froze in around 2½ hours. Each freezer is different and so you will have to look out for when it’s ready.

If you prefer, you can space out the times you rake to end up with bigger crystals.

Remove from the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving, depending on the weather. When you’re ready to serve, rake with a fork to collect the layers of shaved ice. Serve in glasses that have been chilled in the refrigerator.

Lunchbox Pasta: Pesto Pasta Salad

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

My lunch box was not a friend. I didn’t bond with it, would not look forward to hearing it snap open and found no pleasure in its content. Considering it a waste of my arm’s energy, I slugged it over to school reluctantly, with a new trick I had learned — the eye roll. The only thing I liked about it was that I’d choose a new one each year, reflecting my ever-morphing personality through brightly colored images glued onto boxed plastic.

In the first grade, I was dubbed a “cookie monster”, protesting against sandwiches until I was allowed to carry only cookies. That bit of excitement didn’t last long. The lunch box tradition died out as I got taller but a persistent packed lunch was shoved into my backpack pocket by mom; and when I’d return home, intact sandwich and bagged apple would be stuffed in secrecy into a deep corner of my desk, left to darken and rot.

Lunch boxes came back to haunt me in 2010. My two stepchildren, wanting to fit into their new school — a melting pot of nationalities, were heavily depending on me to do their lunch boxes justice, to compete with moms preparing tiffins packed neatly with fresh parathas, curried vegetables and a side of mango pickle. Sandwiches just weren’t going to do the trick when the kids are coming back with stories of snacking on seaweed with a Korean friend during recess.

So I pushed back with pasta salads, homemade burgers and juice boxes that doubled as ice packs on hot days; and on rainy days, a bowl of packed rice, slow-cooked beef and root vegetables then for later, a mini dessert muffin. On occasion, the leftover molokheyya would make an appearance, which apparently had been fed to many mouths hailing from different countries with the same plastic spoon.

It could be said that I am no one to encourage many Egyptian moms to put a little more thought into their kids’ lunchboxes because it may seem that I try hard only to compensate for the fact that I am not, in reality, my stepkids’ “real” mom. Yes, there is truth in that I am over-delivering, overreaching to try to please the hearts of two young ones that found themselves in my home, but what I have learned is that most children, when given the opportunity and the right circumstances, will enjoy a variety of different foods that we as adults might not think to feed them.

It’s tiring to see the same things on kids’ menus everywhere and now in their lunch boxes to replace the regular white bread Nutella sandwich — chicken nuggets, french fries and pizza. If Chinese children are gobbling up slices of baked tofu and wolfing down plates of kai-lan, and Indian children are scooping up mounds of coconut rice and fleshy bits from a fish head curry, what are we doing? If we’re a culture that enjoys eating so much, where is the depth? Why is there fear in training our children’s palate — an automatic “no, he/she won’t like this”?

What so many of us are sending to school is afterthought food, with little consideration of the boredom that ensues when eating the same things for a few long years. Here’s a different idea below and if you don’t like it, there are many other recipes and ideas on blogs and popular food websites about lunch boxes. Visit Lunchbox Blues, a blog where J.M. Hirsch chronicles 180 days of school meals as well as how his son grows to accept certain foods. You can go through Shirmiya’s blog, Happy Little Bento, where she outdoes us all with her delicate hand and creative presentation. If those don’t work for you, there’s always Googling “best lunch box ideas for kids”. Whatever it is, just do something different this school year.

Pesto Pasta Salad

You’ll need:
2 cups of dry pasta (around 200 grams)
½ cup of basil pesto
½ cup of peas, cooked (around 75 grams)
1 medium-sized colored pepper, thinly sliced
½ a cup of seeded black kalamata olives (around 90 grams)
3 tablespoons of almonds, roughly chopped (around 30 grams)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
The juice of half a lemon

Basil Pesto:
(Recipe adapted from Elise Bauer)
2 cups of basil leaves, fresh
⅓ cup of pine nuts
½ a cup of Roumy cheese, grated
½ a cup of olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper

To make the pesto:
Combine the garlic, basil leaves and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse several times. Drizzle the olive oil into the food processor while continuing to blend. Pour in a thin stream until finished. Pulse until smooth then add the salt, pepper and cheese. Pulse 2 more times before pouring out.

For the pasta:
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil then add your dried pasta. Cook until tender but firm. When done, drain and set the pasta aside. In a separate bowl, combine the peas, olives, colored pepper and almonds then add the pasta. Toss and store in an airtight container. Put the pesto and lemon juice into a separate covered container. Refrigerate both. Remove from the refrigerator when it is time to pack. Whisk the pesto and lemon juice together before pouring it over the pasta and accompanying vegetables. Toss gently and separate servings for packing.

Finding Ramadan

As featured in The Egypt Monocle
My first Ramadan in Cairo after years away has rolled in and with it a slew of television shows crammed with farcical advertising that I don’t watch, extravagantly sweet desserts that I haven’t eaten and a generous spirit of camaraderie that has me puzzled as to where it annually disappears after the boisterous celebration of Eid.

Restaurants have asked their social media accounts to bombard those unfortunate enough to be following them with incessant updates on iftar and sohour menu rotation schedules along with everything in between: sugar, shisha and Ramadan tent reservations. In a month that is revered for the calm it brings, many instead go into overdrive, exhausting their bodies with food and fruity clouds of smoke.

Remembering the first Ramadan in Kuala Lumpur, I realize now that it was quite dismal. We missed our bustling city, our nosy people and the feeling of our energy plummeting after a heavy family meal. Being invited out for iftar or what they call “berbuka puasa” — literally “to open the fast” in Bahasa Melayu, an anxious wave undulated through me hinting that I was on foreign ground, that the Egyptian Ramadan traditions that had long been implanted in me were shaken.

This unfamiliarity eased as the years passed and we gradually fell into a not-so-Egyptian, not-so-Malaysian routine that suited our recent married-couple habits. We’d begin with a soup poured steaming into a mug then would sit in the humidity, looking out at Kuala Lumpur from our balcony on the 21st floor. A proper iftar was to follow two hours later, after the karkade and the tea with milk; and in this way, my body would not drag and would not crave a hazelnut-studded round of basboosa waiting in my dreams to be consumed in its entirety. My stomach had adapted and my traditions had been reset.

Coming back to experience the same Ramadan buzz, the hard sell that Cairo shoves at the fasting, I feel out of place. I now yearn for a smoking hot chicken tikka colored bright red for my eyes to eat too, a South Indian sambar for my taste buds to dance and to finish, a delicate roti gula, a sugary bread, similar in appearance and flavor to our local feteer.

In time, I will get reaccustomed to my original home. I will find my appetite for konafa and tiptoe to the fridge for secret spoonfuls of leftover rice but for now, I will accept iftar invitations with a smile and an inner desire to stay home until my mind wraps itself around the traditions that it has lost touch with. I will make rice that you might not be used to but it will, to me, signal the smells of a recently lost home. It’s good to be back Cairo, but in my home this Ramadan, I need to reinvent your flavors, taking ingredients in an Egyptian kitchen and giving them a little Indian twist to answer to my Asian cravings.

Tomato Almond Basmati
You’ll need:
1 cup of basmati rice, uncooked
2 tablespoons of ghee
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely diced
½ cup of almonds, peeled and halved
Juice of half a lime
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1½ cup of water
1 teaspoon of sugar
½ teaspoon chilli powder
½ teaspoon of ground cumin
1 bird’s eye chilli, finely sliced
1 cinnamon stick, around 10 cm in length
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Rinse the basmati rice in cold water until the water runs clear then drain. In a separate pan, toast the almonds until golden and set aside.

In a medium heavy-bottomed pot, melt the ghee on medium heat. Add the cumin, cinnamon and chili powder and stir to combine. Add the garlic and onions and cook until fragrant. They should not get any color on them. Add the tomato paste and stir the contents of the pot together then add the rice, water, lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to a rapid boil and leave to boil for a minute. Lower the heat and cover. Do not disturb the rice or lift the lid for around 12 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave to stand covered for another 5-10 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving and top with toasted almonds.

Rave Reviews & a 3-Bean Salad

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

It is a rare occasion to find me visiting a Cairo restaurant based on a local review; but how much of this is my fault, this fear that I should not trust what is seemingly penned down without an afterthought? Do I skip over errors in technique descriptors and succumb to a world of uninteresting words that gives me nothing but cues that the reviewer cannot move past terms like “mouth-watering,” “amazing” and, I say this with a sigh, “perfect”?

Today, many Egyptians who have not stepped foot in a kitchen have decidedly taken on the online job of restaurant critic, with a virtuoso opinion that is customarily courteous and inclusive of the word “yummy,” that disregards the gray and congealed sauce that has been served atop a dry and under-seasoned steak.

It is known that the internet has opened doors to many who would in the 1980s have had no place to sound their voices. Food blogs and restaurant review aggregators have come to Egypt. We are now able to click through a multitude of links that invite us to eat at neighborhood restaurants through our screens and other people’s palates but most of the verbiage dedicated to restaurants ends up similar in style: dazzled amateurs happy with their cozy new positions, preferring not to write anything if they didn’t like the food.

It takes thick skin to tell the truth and most reviews have been ultimately forgiving about the food and service. On some days, the glorification and praise know no bounds and we are left to wonder how many of those favorable reviews are concealing a simple monthly fee.

There are ways to fix this doomed scenario we’re living in. It just takes some effort in between eating and kowtowing to the popular.

If you’re planning on becoming a published restaurant critic, begin to draw on your experiences as both an eater and a cook. If you have never cooked, get yourself into the kitchen and begin following tested recipes from reputable sources, both traditional and others with international flavors that may be fresh and unusual when paired. Learn what the world considers good.

Work on your writing skills; poorly constructed reviews will often be taken less seriously. Prove yourself through detailed pieces over a lengthy period of time. Visit the restaurant at least three times before liberally handing out your review, cover as many menu items as possible and check for consistency. If you’re going to be reviewing, no free meals should be accepted.

Do not hide behind your reviews claiming that you are only an amateur. If you’re regularly providing the market with reviews, you’ll need to get better. Recognize how hard the process can be: eating, having a critical opinion, maintaining anonymity at the restaurant, taking notes, revisiting and writing as honestly and intricately as possible to convey the atmosphere of said place.

Finally and for the love of our country, find a better word for “delicious.”

Three Bean Salad
You’ll need
70 grams edamame, shelled and cooked
90 grams black eyed peas, cooked
70 grams chickpeas, cooked
2 tablespoons of scallions, chopped
1 small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 medium red pepper, diced
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
1½ tablespoon of vegetable oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a pot, boil some salted water and add the edamame in small handfuls. Cook for 4-5 minutes and drain in a colander. Set aside to cool. Once cool, remove from their shells and place in your salad bowl.

Prepare another pot of salted water. Place the black eyed peas in the water then bring it to the boil. Allow to boil for 3 minutes then lower the heat. Simmer for another 30 minutes then drain. When the black eyed peas have cooled, place them with the shelled edamame in the salad bowl.

If you’re using canned chickpeas, drain and rinse before using. If you’re using fresh, allow to soak overnight before cooking the next day. To cook, place them in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat immediately and simmer until tender and plump. Drain and cool. When they’ve lost some heat, add them to your salad bowl. Toss the beans together.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, onions, scallions and garlic and pour over your salad. Mix and chill before serving.

Monday's Rough Recipe: Date Stuffed Croissants

Rough Recipe: Every Monday, I offer up a recipe with no recipe. Use your imagination, tweak the ingredients to your liking, find yourself in your kitchen. Play.

These are flavor-bombs; sticky dates stuffed into a buttery croissant, coated with a crust of dark chocolate and topped with a temptress named Caramel. 

Croissants

Fresh, ripe dates

condensed milk

almond meal 

Dark chocolate - 70%

sea salt

Caramel sauce:

sugar

butter

vanilla

whipping cream 

  

Orzo Chicken Salad & Letters to Friends

As featured in the Foodbuzz Top 9 (May 8th, 2012)

In early January 2011, Heba El Kayal, Lifestyle Editor of what recently was The Daily News Egypt, reached out to me, spinning my head with her subdued charm. Setting a date on email to Skype, I wondered what it was that she would ask me and why she had chosen me to interview, an unemployed Egyptian food blogger living in Kuala Lumpur.  All I had ever done was milk out every bit of silliness I had in me for my blog, that coupled with a recipe to go along with said dose of triviality.

Meeting her for the first time through a screen allowed me a glimpse of cold Cairo on a winter morning. Having had to suffer through many a female more concerned with proving through her dress sense that she had what it required to pull off her job, Heba caught me off-guard. A connection was formed at once. 

Bundled up on her bed in a robe and glasses, she greeted me as an old friend as I was quickly taken through the history of The Daily News Egypt. She was interviewing me because she was always on the look out for new talent. She was interviewing me because she thought I deserve some recognition. I did not see myself as talent; just effort and a little luck. 

Today, I have been the weekly food columnist for a year and a good quarter. The Daily News Egypt interview about my blog resulted in an opportunity to write regularly, to sharpen my skills, and most rewarding of all, to find sisterhood in a passerby. 

Heba, I cannot express my appreciation enough - for the days you pushed me to get out of my funk and fly, for the days you embraced my weaknesses and often, sadness. Thank you for being my editor, my keeper, my friend.  

Orzo Chicken Salad
You'll need:
1/2 cup of orzo
1.5 cups of chicken stock
1.5 cups of water
150 grams of grilled chicken, shredded
1 large red bell pepper, diced (I used 1 small red & 1 small yellow)
7 large kalamata olives, seeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 big handful of chives, snipped
3 tablespoons of olive oil 
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard
1/4 teaspoon of chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the water and chicken stock to a boil. Add the orzo to the pot and stir for a moment to ensure that it doesn't stick to the bottom. Cook uncovered until the orzo is al dente. While the pasta is cooking, combine the chicken, bell peppers and olives in a large bowl. Mix half of the chives into the salad. When the orzo is ready, strain and toss through the other ingredients. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, lime juice, mustard, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper to make a light dressing and pour over the orzo salad mixing gently as you go along to ensure it coats the salad ingredients. Garnish with the second half of snipped chives and serve chilled.  

A blueberry cake and flashes of color

As featured in The Daily News Egypt

I grew up wearing shades of watermelon, tangerine and aqua; colors I was taught by my mother. In our home, there was never use of the unadorned word blue, only baby blue, navy blue, royal blue and petrol. This is how she saw the world and what drove us, my sister and I, to look out for new colors and to use them regularly; compelling color names like vermillion and viridian were the winners where I was concerned.

Only later did I notice that the everyday brown never made an appearance in our house. The closest we had gotten to finding something “brown” in our closets or rooms was in fact a cross between terra cotta and rust. When winter would come and the city’s people would shed their summer spirit to shroud themselves in tones of wet sand and dusty leaves, my mother would be the lady crossing the street in the scarlet coat.     

 

On a clear day in Abu Dhabi, she took me, her newly turned eleven year old, shopping. Enthusiastically, I picked up a brown button-down dress and asked her what she thought, hoping that she would agree that it was the dress for me. “I don’t like brown,” she said as she walked a few steps ahead to lift up a dusty rose blouse, delicate and demure.

Soon after my university years, I took a trip alone to Abu Dhabi to reconnect with friends and the city I had seen solely through the biased eyes of my childhood. There, I bought a fitted brown t-shirt and several other brown garments that surprised my mother upon my return and me for breaking away if only a little from my love of standard black.

In my mid-twenties, I started taking fewer photos of muted faces in black and white and more photos of food, dipped in gloss and drenched in color. It was apparent through time that brown did not hold well in still life and could rarely come alive aside from molding itself into the egotist of brown food, chocolate. For the simplest and most delicious of brown foods, sauces included, I would have to learn to make them shine; to garnish with parsley, with julienned shallots, with cheese tuiles.   

But brown dishes are not the only thing I learned to eat voraciously while shielding my mess of a plate from my scrutinizing camera lens.

I am yet to photograph a bone-in shank that looks appetizing and a while back, I struggled with coconut milk mussels before getting a shot that would flatter them with their quivering soft insides, a tell-tale sign that we may not all be beautiful on the inside.

Some foods shine on their own and excel under a macro lens while others struggle, pleading with you to place them on a layered table setting with a few star props in natural light. When photographing your food for others, it is imperative to do some organization for it is never a picture-perfect snapshot moment, even when it’s the most vibrant of red velvet cakes.

Find your grandmother’s detailed silver spoons and old cookbooks to place in the background, even tattered pages and parchment paper work to give your photo some depth. Consider your surroundings and learn to work with them. You will find that you need not an awe-inspiring place to work in; just some stable sunlight, a reliable camera, a simple dish and your imagination.

Chosen as Gourmet Live's Image of the Week May 9, 2012

Double Blueberry Cake
You’ll need:
1 cup of self-raising flour
100 grams of butter
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
1/2 cup of sugar (You can reduce this to 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup of fresh blueberries
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the blueberry sauce:
2 cups of frozen blueberries
½ cup of water
½ cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
The zest of one large lemon
2 tablespoons of cornstarch + 2 tablespoons of water
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Begin by creaming the butter and the sugar in a stand mixer until completely blended and fluffy. Add the eggs and egg yolk and mix again for 30 seconds. Add the flour gradually, allowing every ¼ cup to incorporate into the batter before adding the next ¼ cup. Scrape the sides of your bowl every now and then to make sure everything goes in. Pour in the vanilla essence. In a separate bowl, toss the blueberries in some extra flour until coated then add to the batter. This will allow the blueberries to hold their place avoiding having them pool at the bottom of your cake tin. Add to a small greased loaf tin. This is not a big cake and is meant to finish quickly in both prep work and eating time. Pop your cake into the oven at 170 degrees Celsius. There is no need to preheat. Allow the cake to bake for approximately 45-50 minutes (until a knife comes out clean). When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before extracting from the tin.

Blueberry sauce: In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the blueberries, water, sugar and lemon juice on medium heat. Stir often until it comes to a low boil. In a separate bowl, stir the cornstarch into 2 tablespoons of cold water until dissolved. Gradually stir the cornstarch into the blueberry mixture. Simmer on medium-low heat and stir every so often until the sauce has reduced and is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. This should take around 7 minutes. Take the sauce off the heat when read and stir in the freshly grated lemon zest and vanilla extract. If you’re using vanillin, stir it in when adding the cornstarch. Feel free to add more sugar; some blueberries are not as sweet as others. To thin out your sauce, add in a few drops of hot water at a time and stir until you reach your desired consistency.