I woke up early to get the final rudimentary ingredients i.e. a giant soup pan..and rice cooker.. and toilet paper... :) By noon I was in the kitchen with my apron on and trying to make sense of the menu I fathomed and whether I bought the right produce! Fear not I am a master at chaos management! I failed to reveal that last night I had in fact tried to make the desserts - I stayed up till 1am making rice pudding and basboosa (semolina cake) only to have them both end up in the bin. The dutch dessert rice clashed severely with the Egyptian vanilla and the Moroccan semolina did not get along well with the Turkish cream or the Dutch milk. All in all my culinary fiddler on the roof tactics failed miserably. Cooking is as much an art as it is a science. I failed chemistry badly in high school! But I learnt my lesson! I picked up my trusted ingredients and by 1.30pm I had a stunning rice pudding and basboosa with lemon sugar syrup ready!
I started on the moussakka - not the usual Greek moussaka. This one has no potatoes - or Cypriots - and is made with fresh bechamel sauce according to my momma's recipe. Instead of frying the aubergine, capiscum and courgette each veg was separately baked in the oven with olive oil and lemon salt. The mince meat was shallow fried in olive oil and a small tea spoon of ghee and lots of shredded onions. Once all the meat was cooked I added a concoction of fried onions with fresh garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon to the meat. The salsa was a combination of oven baked vine tomatoes with tomato puree and tomato sauce from a can (they are allowed!) infused with basil, cinnamon and nutmeg and a super secret ingredient. A very good friend of mine once gave me a pot of paternal made harissa - I have no idea what is in it but it is the best harissa on this planet. And I use it sparingly to add that extra pezaz..rather hutzpah.. to my dishes. Once all the separate ingredients were ready I layered the moussakka and let it breath for a couple of hours before baking it off in the oven.
One down... more to go! I had some left over courgette, aubergine and capiscum so I quickly combined some rice, mince, parsley, puree, tomatoes, coriander, celery and herbs and stuffed the hallowed out veg. The leftover rice I placed in a cooking bag - this is not the best option. If you have left over stuffing rice best to roll it in lettuce or cabbage leaves and add it with the other stuffed veg to steam. Bet Nigella didn't think of that! The steaming trick is to layer the bottom with sliced carrots and add some stock instead of water. So with that done I turned to the houmous - which turned out really well thank you... yeah not revealing this recipe with the upcoming cross continent houmous competition!
On to the ma2'looba (Upside Down) - this is traditionally a Saudi Arabian dish made with fried everything - lamb or chicken, aubergine and cauliflower ontop of a bed of rice with nuts, seeds and raisins. I of course did not stick to this recipe of friedom - just the basic principle of turning the dish upside down! I poached the chicken in some stock with onions and coriander then layered the dish with it, added some baked courgette, steamed carrots, and the rice which I had infused with star anise, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. I should mention that I use Egyptian short grain rice for this dish [bought from the local Med/Ayrab store]. Thing is you have to wash the rice thoroughly until the water is clear, otherwise you will just get starchy rice and no one likes starchy rice.
Then came the brown bean stew aka 'fool'. This is a traditional Egyptian dish - the staple diet - with variations seen all over the Arab world; the Palestinians make it with houmous, the Turkish with too much cummin and so on and so forth. I made this one with lots of onions stirfried with garlic and cummin in olive oil and then I addedd the wet brown beans and a teaspoon of tomatoe puree. In a separate pan I heated up some ghee butter and fried some onions and garlic golden brown. I added this to the brown bean stew and stirred it along with some freshly chopped coriander. Et voila!
To cut the heaviness of the moussakka and stew I made something similar to tzatziki using Turkish/Greek yogurt (wait till we get to the feta!), creme fraiche, freshly chopped mint, garlic, salt and pepper and the tiniest bit of cummin powder. I also forgot to serve this. Alongside that I used the leftover baked capiscum and made a fresh mezze by mixing the veg with balsamico vinegar, olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of cummin and half a clove of garlic. A fresh tomato salad with chopped mint, vingegar and olive oil and some cummin. By now it was 7 and my guests would be arriving in an hour. My wonderful sister had prepped the house I left in a mess so I started cleaning my work station. By 19:45 I was finally out of the kitchen and desperately trying to mask the cooking smells lighting candles and incense everywhere! My hand I rubbed with some parsley to get the onion and garlic scent out...in case you were wondering. DOORBELL!!
My guests had arrived - I opened the door to a stream of people led by a rather pretty woman holding a huge bunch of flowers! So, we had the official family member who had signed up for the dinner - the pretty lady with the flowers-, her father (Dutch), her aunt (British), her aunt's partner (British), her aunt's partner's son (..British!) and his girlfriend (New Zealand). My sister kindly led everyone into the living room as I tried desperately to find some befitting music and listen out for the sizzle to come from the oven. I had laid out a traditional breakfast as an aperitif, namely dates with milk. The blandness of the milk cuts through the sweetness of the dates making it a very pleasant and light way of breaking one's fast. Indeed. After several oohs and aahs (even from the sister) I returned to my smoldering enclave of a kitchen, the ma2looba wasn't going to turn itself upside down! By 20:50 everything was on the table and it was officially sunset.
At one point I returned to the table to find my sister and the aunt trying to decipher an Om Kalthoum song with the one trying to remember the melody and the other the lyrics to Enta Omri. The rest of the table was rather amused at this spectacle. Who wouldn't be? Event though I had 6 complete strangers in my house it never actually felt like that. To partake in something like this requires a certain degree of humility from both parties involved and a callous amount of curiosity and enthusiasm. We certainly lacked none of the latter. So the ice was broken within moments - and let's not forget, nothing works social miracles quite like food! It is very rewarding to know people are enjoying a home cooked meal because of your efforts. I may have been in the kitchen for hours but I enjoyed every single minute of it. The conversations that ensued ranged from family to religion, to football to traveling, everything and anything a family would cover over a dinner time conversation. The family had shown such tremendous interest in Ramadan, Egypt, the food, the history, and even experienced their own nostalgic moments on account of the food and setting. There's nothing quite like watching people remember good times - somehow their happiness spreads like wildfire infecting everyone with an immense sense of appreciation and bliss. By the time we had rounded our bellies with savoury and sweet it was already midnight and time for my lovely guests to catch the last tram home.
After several exchanges of contacts and lots of warm hugs my home returned to being a house again. Rather empty. I don't expect everyone to understand, but somehow sharing our experiences, channeling my mother's skills through the food and genuinely enjoying the company of strangers who transformed into friends, gave me one of my most memorable Ramadan moments. So thank you my dear guests for being such lovely, welcoming and open strangers ;)
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