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.

Mom's Cinnamon Rice

The recipe I'm sharing today is one of no fuss because Egypt really doesn't need to be any more difficult than it is right now. We need simple pleasures - ones that assure us that the sun will continue to shine despite the plumes of smoke in gradients of grey rising in our city's sky; pleasures that remain firmly fixed in our transient memories. 

My mom's cinnamon rice. Scents of family gatherings, leftovers ravaged after a late night out and Ramadan. Familiarity and inner peace. A safe place to be. 

Start your way to inner peace too, if only for a moment or two with a little bit of beef, an onion and some ghee. 

Cinnamon Rice
You'll need:
350 grams of ground beef
1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped
450 grams of short-grain rice, soaked for 30 minutes
3 tablespoons of ghee
2.5 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
Pan-fried almonds to garnish 
Water
Salt

In a large pot, melt 2 tablespoons of ghee on medium heat. Cook the onions until translucent then add the ground beef. Cook the ground beef until browned. Add the cinnamon in the last 5 minutes of cooking the beef. 

Add 3 cups of water to the beef and leave to simmer for a minute. Rinse the rice to remove extra starch and add the rice to the beef.

Stir then season with salt and add the last tablespoon of ghee. Bring to a rapid boil then turn down the heat to a flame. Cover the pot and allow to cook for 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked through. Once cooked, place in a serving dish and garnish with toasted almonds. 

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.

Half-browned rice - a family tradition

Special to The Daily News Egypt
When my mother is in the kitchen, she likes to talk about my grandmother; I don't think she realizes that it has become a pattern. As she stirs, today a creamy mushroom soup, tomorrow some strawberry jam thickening on the stove, she remembers her own mother's hands, how they tailored dainty dresses and kneaded soft and supple biscuit dough.

My mother-in-law skims her freshly chopped molokheyya soup as it simmers, the same method used to skim greasy fat rising to the top of a bubbling chicken stock. She does it out of tradition, a custom that was never intentionally passed on by her mother but viewed through the eyes of growing children who would one day instinctively emulate what they once saw long ago. She retells stories of her mother, a refined woman from the city traveling through the countryside in the 1930s with her doctor-husband and eight children in the making, and of how she would awake early and trundle out to cook the day's meals thus eliminating the smell of cooking in the house if she were to receive visitors later in the afternoon or how she would exercise her fingers on the piano or listen to the radio as she sewed on her treasured sewing machine every morning.

My newly married sister has picked up on preparing food beforehand and freezing it for a later date in the same fashion that my mother continues to do today. I have a feeling that she will always have homemade burgers on hand and will offer them up readily to the hungry stomachs that visit.

A close friend insists that the only way, her mother's and grandmother's way, to make goulash, a savory beef and phyllo pie, is without a trace of tomatoes and a healthy dose of beaten egg and milk; another friend explains that it can only be made with stock to give it a crunchy base like that of the one she grew up with and a rich tomato sauce to complement the ground beef filling. This is the way of tradition and preserving identity.

We are constantly shaping the way our traditions look for future generations. I wonder if our children and grandchildren will know half of what we today are learning from the generations that grew up in an Egypt that they wanted to remember. Will we too pass on these same traditions or are we forgetting our heritage? Why is it that when I talk about Egyptian food, many Egyptians insist on notifying me that there is no such thing as Egyptian food?

What of Upper Egypt's sun bread known as “shamsi bread” that is left to rise in the sun and is baked today in a method that dates back to the ancient Egyptians? What of Egyptian desert truffles known as “terfas” rumored to be created by a magical lightning bolt and also highly appreciated in ancient Egypt? How many Egyptians begin to preserve their leftover fruit in jars of jam or pickle their vegetables for the winter?

No longer do many of us know our own history away from the wars and military achievements.

While countries everywhere embrace the little that they have been blessed with, the relationships they have formed or the cultures they have cultivated, we continue to run to the French and Lebanese for inspiration, the Gulf for religion or live forever trying to find ourselves like the Americans on television.

Even today, many of us are looking toward Malaysia in hope that maybe we could become “like them.” Malaysia has now officially banned protests and political marches, its Muslims cannot enjoy a glass of wine in public without being monitored or arrested by plain-clothed police and the differentiation between the three Main Malaysian races — Malay, Chinese and Indian — is clear to anyone willing to question bravely. When did we become tired of our own fertile ground?

Today, take a look around you and learn from an Egyptian that knows more about a facet of Egypt than you. Disregard the political parties you don't agree with for a moment, turn a blind eye to the unknown future and take note of a tradition from our past. This recipe belongs to my grandmother who used to feed me chicken soup and boiled chicken for the first years of my life believing that it was the way to true health. Introduced to me by my mother, it has become part of my home as well and has found a place in my husband's heart.

Egyptian Half-Browned Rice
You'll need:
1 cup of short-grain rice
1 ¾ cups of water
1 ½ tablespoons of ghee
Salt to taste

Begin by rinsing the rice in a sieve. After draining, separate the rice into two equal halves. Place a pot on medium heat. Add the ghee and wait for it to melt and ripple. Add half of the rice to the ghee and mix together with a heatproof spoon. At first, the rice will stick together and seem like it won't come undone. Continue to mix. Gradually, the rice grains will start to break apart to form the loose grains they were at first. Keep stirring the rice for 2 minutes. It will begin to turn a light gold color. Continue to stir until it reaches a deep golden shade. Once you have reached the desired color, add the second half of the rice. Mix to combine both and add 2 cups of water. Bring the water to a quick boil and reduce the heat to a low flame. Cover the pot and leave to cook undisturbed for 15 minutes. Uncover the pot, taste to test the grain of rice. If it remains resistant, cook for another 3-5 minutes. Serve hot.

A basmati pilaf and scents of home

It is always different writing my column in Cairo. The smells and tastes are changed and bring back many memories; and so when I write on my mother's bed, I live in the past. Writing from Malaysia allows me to reflect on my present and on what I am regularly learning. It reinforces the relationship my bum has with my sofa and how I huddle in a particular corner to type up a new piece for The Daily News Egypt. This week, I write about rice, being of much bigger importance in my life than I realized. 

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

No longer can I put a number on the times or ways I've eaten rice. Minimally integrated into a meal or making up the bulk of a dish, rice has repeatedly required me to come to terms with its sticky staying power in my life and the world's obsessive need to consume this starchy staple.

Before the creamy Italian risotto rose to a place of power and prominence in the culinary world, I grew up on Egypt's simple and salty ghee-laden rice as well as multiple servings of steaming Indian basmati rice.

To me, white rice was characterless and only got slightly exciting when Ramadan came – the Muslim holy month that propelled cooks into the kitchen, doing their best to gussy up the simple, almost invisible humble grain.

My 10-year-old self would tell you there were only two kinds of rice: short-grained white rice, usually eaten with a saucy tomato-drenched vegetable; or long-grained white rice, buried beneath an spicy Indian curry – both equally fluffy, flavorful and often forgotten; or, being the finicky eater I was, used as a filler when I turned my nose at the accompanying dishes laid out before me.

As I grew, my changing palate began to grow fonder of this flavor magnet and found ways to utilize it to bring stardom and cultural diversity to the table; but it would take many a trial and error before I succeeded.

After a few months of living in Kuala Lumpur, I came to the realization that Egyptians eat minimal quantities of rice next to South-east Asians. These people are rice connoisseurs, eating rice for breakfast and buying it at a whopping 3 to 5 kilos at a time. Everyone has a rice cooker. The rice aisle is host to brands and types of rice I have never before seen. This, at first, is overwhelming and confusing and I've often been asked by fellow Egyptian expatriates what brand I'm buying and if I've found a suitable substitute for our beloved Egyptian rice.

In the three years I've resided here, I've switched brands 3 times. As I previously said: a confusing issue and one that is taking up far more of my time than I ever expected.

After finding comfort in cooking rice, I began actively seeking new recipes that took advantage of this world favorite. At dinner parties, I would use rice, the highly valued inexpensive grain, to bring Lebanese cinnamon rice with ground beef and pine nuts, Indian turmeric rice, Golden Egyptian seafood rice and rice puddings to the warmed plates of guests – these recipes serving as welcomed highlights that allowed my newly acquired friends from Kuala Lumpur a glimpse of where I came from, away from their steamed and salt-less fragrant rice, chicken rice and banana leaf rice, not to mention a dear favorite of mine, pineapple fried rice. It is now hard to recall how many moments I've spent in Southeast Asia discussing rice and the many techniques used to achieve the perfect bite.

Whether you've found appreciation for it later in life or have been raised on rice, its ability to create a magical sense of home has won over the hearts of humanity over the centuries.

This recipe, adapted from Gordon Ramsay, combines the bold flavors of eastern spices with a few popular western alterations. Baked in the oven, a wholesome basmati pilaf can be transformed into a rustic and rich deviation from the norm.

Spiced Basmati Pilaf
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay's Chef's Secret)

You'll need:
a round casserole dish
250 grams of basmati rice
3 tablespoons of ghee
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cardamom pods
Finely pared lemon zest, in pieces
1 sprig of thyme
2 star anise
2 cloves
500 ml of chicken stock or water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear to remove excess starch. Make a cartouche by cutting a circle, slightly larger than your casserole dish, out of greaseproof paper. Cut a small hole in the center to create a vent for steam.

Melt your ghee on medium heat in a flameproof casserole dish and sauté the onions for approximately five minutes until softened. Add the rice and stir to combine. Add the herbs, spices and lemon and cook for a minute until aromatic.
Boil your stock or water then pour into the rice along with the salt and pepper. Cover with the cartouche, pressing down to turn the edges up and create a neat fit. Make sure the vent is visible. There is no need for a lid.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes before removing the cartouche. Fork through the remaining tablespoon of ghee until the rice grains are fluffy and separate. Serve.