Kebab bil karaz/ Sour cherry kebab

Ok so cherries and meat...weird combination right? why would I try this right? I have some memory of being at some medical conference that my parents dragged us to as kids (I think Mackinac Island) and going to a dinner where they had cherries and chicken. I just took a little bit and it was amazing! I have wanted something similar since but I guess it isn't that common of a thing. Anyways, I have been wanting to try this dish for a long time and I never see sour cherries here in America (however I have seen dried sour cherries, sour cherry jam, and sweetened sour cherry juice) and I wanted to try it the real way so I went to whole foods to buy some fruit and I saw SOUR CHERRIES and I think I might have squealed with delight out loud and embarrassed myself but nothing out of the ordinary. So yay for whole foods.

Kebab bil karaz is a dish from Halab (Aleppo) which is about 4 hours away from Damascus. Just 4 hours away and it seems like their food is so different from the food in Damascus. Halab is known for their kibbeh and kebab and for using spicy Aleppo pepper in their food contrary to Damascus. Damascus food is very....well we tend to focus on the ingredients rather then the spices and so some may find it kind of boring.

I have never been to Aleppo, at least not that I can remember. I know that when I was around 13 our family and some other family friends took a trip around Syria but I was at that age where I didn't care about much so we probably passed through Aleppo but I couldn't tell you much about it. Kano, from Syrian foodie in London, always has interesting information about where foods came from and about the city so check out his blog. He also has a recipe for Kebab bil karaz. I have never tasted this dish so I don't know what it is suppose to taste like but I enjoyed it and so did my Damascene husband who doesn't always like to try new food (especially such a foreign concept like fruit in his dinner). Anyways I tried my best and I think it tasted like it was suppose to however probably in Syria it tastes much better because the fruits and vegetables in Syria in general have a much better taste...fruits and veggies in America have a watered down taste. Anyways here goes:

Ok so I washed the cherries and then i pitted them with this handy dandy gadget. If you don't have one and don't want to buy one then you can either crush the cherries and pick out the seeds of just cut the meat of the cherries off from around the seed.

These cherries are really soft and dark and are not as sour as I thought they would be from the name. I think they use the cherries not as ripe when making them in Halab but we need to compromise here. (sha7ad oo msharit)

Pitted cherries.

So in a heavy bottom saucepan (because of the sugar it would burn easily otherwise) add the pitted cherries, some sugar, and a little bit of water to get the cherries started.

I covered the pan and put it at medium low and about 5 minutes later this is what it starts to look like. Start smashing the cherries a bit so more juice is released and it can be thickened.

At this point add some dibis rimman (pomegranate molasses) and just a tiny tiny bit of cinnamon. I was kind of hesitant about the cinnamon because at this point the sauce was very sweet. I was kind of scared and mad that maybe I had messed up this dish but once you add the meat the sweetness evens out.

So I decided to puree my cherries (1st because I don't like chunks of soft fruit in anything and 2nd because I wanted the sauce to thicken easier) however I believe they don't usually puree the cherries and they keep some of them whole...but its your food so you can do what you want.

I put it back in the saucepan and cooked it just a little more.

Grate an onion on the finest setting (If the onion is too big you won't be able to form the meat or it will fall apart while cooking). I decided to add the onion juice to the sauce to take away from the sweetness, it worked but I don't think it is necessary because like I said earlier the meat evens out the sweetness.

So I decided to use ground lamb (some recipes say just meat and some said lamb). If I made this again I would either mix lamb and beef or just use all beef and that is because I am just use to Damascus cooking and they always use beef for their kebabs and stuff. The lamb tasted good but it has a strong taste if you are not use to it.

I formed the meat into medium sized meatballs.

I cooked the meat in a little bit of samneh (clarified butter) but I believe in Halab they grill them. You can also place the meat in a pan close together and cook them in the over half way. Next time I would put them in the oven because this dish gets heavy with the meat and the pine nuts and samneh you garnish with.

Cook on all sides until a nice dark brown. When the meat forms this crust it helps to keep the juice in and makes a really good deep meaty flavor that will mix with the sauce.

Once the meat is cooked half way through, finish cooking them all the way in the cherry sauce. The sauce will become a little thinner when you add the meat because the meat releases some juice so that is why the cherry sauce should be thickened before hand. If you want to thicken the sauce more and you have already added the meat then just cook on medium until the desired consistency but watch the bottom because sugar burns easily.

So you are suppose to serve the kebab bil karaz with triangle pieces of pita bread and I believe you are suppose to just eat it like that but I made some rice. When you serve the Kebab you need to garnish with fried pine nuts and chopped parsley.

It was really good and very filling.

This is how we ate it. If you are form Halab and are offended from my version of the recipe then...sorry. I understand, its like when you see recipes with quinoa in tabbouleh or fava beans in the hummus....it is annoying.

Anyways, hopefully I did everything right ( I searched many recipes for this and they were pretty much all the same).

Written Recipe:

kebab:

1 pound of ground lamb (or a mix of lamb and beef or only beef, your preference)

1/2 onion finely grated

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 to 1 tablespoon of mixed arabic spice

Sour cherry sauce:

2 cups whole pitted cherries (or around 1.5 pounds of whole cherries)

2 tablespoons of dibis rimman (pomegranate molasses)

1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1/4 cup of water

(my addition of about 1 tablespoon of onion juice from the grated onions)

garnish with fried pine nuts and samneh, parsley and pita bread.

Fatayer

Fatayer are the PERFECT thing for parties and even to keep in the refrigerator or freezer and heat up whenever you need a snack. I love these because there are so many different kinds of fatayer, zaatar, cheese, meat, spinach, sausage and pizza. In this post i am showing you how i make my fatayer dough and the fillings or toppings. Feel free to change anything you want to your taste. One day i am going to buy a pizza stone and then hopefully they will be more like the yummy fatayer in salhiyeh. Oh and if anyone is reading this and knows how to make those fatayer they make in Syria (mhammara) the spicy ones with cheese on top please let me know.

Well of course we start off with yeast and sugar

Add in the warm water and wait until it starts to activate (about 3 to 5 minutes)

Once the yeast is activated add in olive oil and flour and salt (mix the salt with the flour so you don't kill you yeast)

slowly mix in the flour until you get a soft dough that it wet but isn't sticking to your fingers.

Place it in a greased bowl and let it double in size. Usually i turn my microwave on for 30 seconds and THEN i place the dough in there.

oooo look at that big bubble! Ok so i don't punch down my dough but feel free to if that's what you like.

I roll out my dough and using a biscuit cutter i cut all my fatayer to the same size

This is an option on how to shape a cheese fatireh. I made all of mine flat because i wanted to freeze them and it takes up less room.

So for the spinach filling you need either baby spinach or regular spinach that is cut. Make sure to wash your spinach well and let it dry. Sprinkle salt and begin to squeeze the spinach. I actually got exact measurements from, none other than Najats Kitchen on youtube, however most people add the same stuff except different amount.

It is going to start to look like cooked spinach and will release A LOT of water.

SQUEEZE!!!!!!!!!

I did this 3 times and i got about a cup of water each time. Just keep squeezing until you cant get any more water out.

Then mix in the onion, lemon juice, olive oil, sumac, cumin, arabic spice and pepper.

I found pomegranates at the market and couldn't resist so i halved my spinach mixture and in one i added pomegranate seeds and the other i added red pepper flakes. These two additions are totally optional but i like them.

So after the dough is rolled out (roll the dough for the spinach a little thicker that for cheese and meat pies because when they cook they will release more water and if the dough isn't thick it will break and leak water everywhere.

Pinch the two sides together

Then fold up the last side so that the spinach pie is a triangle...DONE

Now i am not sure how to make the meat mixture but this is how i make mine. I take ground beef and mix it with pomegranate molasses, arabic spice, salt tomato paste and a little oil (i use lean beef)

Take the circles and press down to make them thin and long, then press in the meat mixture and decorate with pine nut (pomegranate optional)

To distinguish between which spinach pies have pomegranate seeds and which ones are spicy i sprinkled some sumac on top of the pomegranate spinach pies.

Written Recipe:

Dough:

3 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of yeast

1 cup of warm water

1 tablespoon of sugar or honey

salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Spinach: Modified from Najats kitchen on youtube

spinach sprinkled with salt and squeezed until 3 cups of spinach are left

1/2 cup of onions

1/4 cup of lemon juice (I use citric acid to lessen the moisture in the pies)

1/4 cup of olive oil

2 tablespoons of sumac

1/4 teaspoon of arabic mixed spice

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

1/4 teaspoon of cumin

red pepper flakes and pomegranate seeds optional

Meat:

1 cup of lean ground beef (or 80/20 if you don't want to add oil)

2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses (dibis rimman)

1 tablespoon of oil

1 teaspoon of arabic spice

1/2 tablespoon of tomato paste

salt to taste

(suggestion, cook up a little meat and taste it because some pomegranate molasses is sweeter or more sour than other)

Cheese:

Any cheese that will melt

sprinkle with black seed (optional)

Tsi2iyeh bi samneh

I haven't posted in a while because i just started school and because i am a little stressed AND because i am re-organizing the whole apartment and throwing away (giving away) as much as possible. Ok so now back to the recipe. So as some of you have noticed i usually have some random memory about every type of food and this one is once again Oussama. When we first got married Oussama use to make tsi2iyeh bi samneh for us on the weekends...and it just was not good. After about the first 6 months i got the courage to tell him he needs to stop with the thick laban tsi2iyeh...turns out he was making it up and didn't really know what he was doing. This is how i make tsi2iyeh bi samneh which we eat almost every weekend (either this the tsi2iyeh bi zayt or fool). By the way i haven't made this or eaten it since i first got married and then this Ramadan i decided to make it and then i reconnected myself with it.

Ok so I think that this is a MUST for really good (anything) hummus. Buy the dried chickpeas and soak them overnight with a little baking soda. This is what the chickpea looks like dry and after it soaked over night. Once it is cooked it gets even bigger.

Dry chickpeas and the chickpeas soaking. So once they have soaked you rinse them with water and bring them to a boil (add a little baking soda once more). Once the chickpeas have boiled lower the heat and let them simmer for about an hour. Feel free to use canned chickpeas if you don't have time...i just really love the softness of after you boil them and you cant get that from canned chickpeas... but the taste is the exact same.

In a deep bowl cut up 2 pita breads, you can add more or less bread depending on what you like. If i am not serving anything else with the fatteh then i say 1 pita bread per person (unless you get the big ones then it obviously would be less)

I smash my garlic and then i add chickpeas and smash them as well. I do this because the chickpeas are hot so they cook the raw garlic taste without actually cooking the garlic.

Either in a bowl or in a blender mix yogurt, lemon juice (unless you have sour yogurt, the arabic brands are usually sour), tahini, salt, garlic, a few chickpeas (or if you have some msabaha) and the chickpea broth, enough to make it watery like milk.

Mix most of the chickpeas with the bread and then pour over the yogurt mixture.

Sprinkle with paprika and more chickpeas

Cook Samneh and toast the pine nuts. Make sure the oil is hot because it needs to make a crackling sound once it hits the yogurt. (funny story, once i was at my parents house and my dad was finishing up the tsi2iyeh and he said to Oussama and me, "listen this is the best sound in the world" and then he poured the samneh over the tsi2iyeh and.....nothing happened...isn't my dad the cutest?!?)

In Laith's words TAH DAH. Serve with arabic pickles (cucumber ones and the pink ones)

Written Recipe:

1 cup of dried and soaked and boiled chickpeas (or a can)

1/2 of lemon

3 tablespoons of tahini sauce

1 tablespoon of msabaha (hummus)

salt

2 small cloves of garlic

1 cup of yogurt (any kind, low fat, full fat or fat free)

as much chickpea broth as needed

2 pita bread ripped into small pieces

1 tablespoon of samneh (clarified butter)

as many pine nuts as desired

King Arthur White Bread خبز ابيض

I have made alot of white bread in the past but this one tastes the most like store bought bread, there is a small crust and a slight butter taste, its soft and perfect for sandwiches. So i by no means think i am a chef or anything, i just like cooking and trying recipes. My reason for this blog is to mainly share my recipes, share recipes i found to be good and to share little tid bits about what went wrong and how i would change things (if there is anything) Here are the step by step directions for the best homemade white bread:

First things first, add the yeast to a cup

then add water and honey

We need to make sure that they yeast is active and that our bread will rise so when foam forms on the yeast mixture we know that we are good to go.

Add powdered milk (i used Nido) to the flour. The recipe calls for All Purpose (AP) flour but i used bread flour because i had it. If you too chose to use bread flour you may need to add a little more water later.

Add the salt

and finally add the butter (it should be room temperature but mine wasn't, i just cute it up and then it softened when i added the warm yeast mixture)

Add the yeast mixture

When the dough is incorporated it is all lumpy, knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth. The dough should be soft and moist but not sticking to your hands. Spray the bowl and leave it in a warm place for about an hour. I usually turn my microwave on for 1 minute and THEN put my dough in there, its like the perfect place to let dough rise and its out of the way.

After the dough has risen for about an hour to an hour and a half it should have doubled in size. If you want to double check that it is ready just poke the dough, it shouldn't bounce back.

Form the dough and place it in a loaf pan to rise a second time

the dough should rise above the pan or else when the dough comes out from the over it will have stretch marks, perfect looking bread doesn't have stretch marks!! (and neither should humans but thats for another day). Before placing the bread in the oven spray it with water OR place an over proof dish in the bottom of the over filled with water, this helps form a crust.

Ok so apparently my pan was a tad small for the amount of dough, that was the only mistake. If you want a hard crust then leave the dough the way it is but if you dont then just take butter and go over the top of the bread quickly.

Written Recipe

1 ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons luke warm water


1 heaping tablespoon honey


2 1/4 teaspoon yeast

1 3/4 teaspoons salt


2 tablespoons soft butter


4 cups AP flour or Bread flour

1/3 cup Nido powdered milk

DIRECTIONS:

Mix the water, yeast and honey in a cup and set aside. Next mix the remaining ingredients and when the yeast is activated add the water. Knead for 10 minutes and place in a greased bowl for about 90 minutes. When the dough has doubled in size punch it down and roll it out into a loaf. Place in the loaf pan and let it rise a second time. Before placing the dough in the over spay it with some water to form a good crunchy crust. Bake in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and spread butter over the top.