Articles Tagged with "Arab"

27/04/2003: Turkish-Style Grilled Lamb with Cous-Cous

Not really a Turkish meal, but my own creation in the Turkish style.

Ingredients

2 lamb leg steaks
150g cous-cous
300 mL vegetable stock, boiling
1 tomato
½ red onion
3–4 spring onions
juice of one lemon
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp olive oil

Spice Mixture

2 tsp cumin seeds or cumin powder
1 tsp dried crushed chilli flakes or chilli powder
1 tsp tumeric
¾ tsp powdered ginger or ¾ inch fresh ginger
1–2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
½ tsp crushed coriander seeds or coriander powder
½ tsp powdered cinnamon

Method

Crush and mix the spices with a pestle and mortar. Add a 1 tbsp lemon juice to make a paste. Rub paste onto the lamb steaks. Grill or griddle for 5–10 minutes on each side, until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, finely chop the onion, tomato, spring onions and parsley. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Fry the red onion and spring onion for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato, parsley, cous-cous and stock and remove…

27/04/2003: Hummous

Ingredients

250g boiled (and cooled) chick peas
75g olive oil
50g lemon juice
50g brine (this can be obtained from a tin of “cooked chickpeas in brine”! Alternatively, just mix some salt and water)
50g Tahini (pulped roasted seseme seeds)
1 small clove of garlic

Method

Blend all ingredients in an electric blender. Done.

Variations

Try adding a roasted red pepper, a little corriander and a little cumin. If you’re feeling dangerous, add a little chilli too.

27/04/2003: Tabouli

This recipe is one I improvised, drawing on a bunch of different sources, notably Closer magazine.

Ingredients

200g bulgar wheat, or cous-cous if this is unavailable
150g fresh parsley, finely chopped
75g fresh mint, finely chopped
2 tomatoes
1.5 lemons
1 red onion
3–4 spring onions
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 vegetable stock cube
Salt and pepper
a handful of pine nuts (optional)

Method

Soak the wheat in about 400mL of water, seasoned with a crumbled stock cube. It will need to soak for somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour, so use this opportunity to make some houmous, falafels, minted lamb chops or whatever as an accompaniment.

Finely dice 1.5 tomatoes, cutting the other half tomato into wedges to use as a garnish. Finely dice the red onion, saving a few rings to use as a garnish. Cut ¼ of a lemon into wedges, again for a garnish and juice the rest. Chop the spring onions.

When the wheat is softened, drain off excess liquid and mix the chopped tomato, onion, spring onions, herbs, pine nuts, oil and lemon juice in. Season with salt and pepper. Allow at least ten minutes for the flavours to mingle before serving.