So far most of my experience with Middle Eastern cooking is with my host mother and through our restaurant excursions as an SIT group. It is my goal to eventually understand the culture of the middle eastern cuisine and how to properly recreate it when I return to the United States.
There is a very real reason that Middle Eastern cooking is represented as pita, hummus and falafels in the United States. So much of what I have eaten is pita with a side of hummus - and this dish is what Jordanians call a light meal. Even outside of scooping hummus, it is very typical to eat a meal completely without utensils and to instead scoop everything up with the pita. The lunch I just had included me picking up pieces of fried egg with a pita scoop. Other scoopable dishes include tabbouleh (a mixture of parsley, mint, onion and garlic all mixed together with vinegar and olive oil) or mixtures of herbs, olive oil, and feta cheese.
Rice is also commonly served as a side dish and is often mixed with yogurt. The rice platter is also commonly mixed together with other ingredients rather than eaten separately, usually put together with chicken or lamb and some sort of vegetables.
Mansaf is the national dish of Jordan and is also one of my host mother's favorite dishes to make. She makes it with white rice that is coated in a layer of spice and oil, then mixes it together with dried yogurt and lamb that has been stewed with herbs. It is then garnished with almonds.
Another common dish is maqluba or "upside down", named after the fact that the rice is layered upside down over the chicken dish. Though it is popular in Jordan, the dish is of Palestinian origin. The chicken is grilled and browned together with a mixture of spices and herbs. Mama also fried eggplants for this purpose, simmering them until they are very tender and laying them on the very bottom.
There have been other dishes, all served with rice, including a delicious stew of spinach and garlic and another of creamy mushroom with seared chicken. However, none of these have names that are known to me so I will save it for another post. Instead, I will begin addressing dessert dishes.
The most common local dessert is undoubtedly a pastry called kunafa (pronounced kanafel). Extremely delicious as it is both sweet and savory, it is nevertheless extremely unhealthy and I cannot bring myself to eat too much of it. The base of the pastry is woven from thin noodle threads and fine dough which are all fried with butter. These are layered with cheese and syrup, then with more pastry dough and sprinkled with pistacchios. The entire concoction is again deep fried. It is essentially a heart attack squished into a single roll and yet so delicious.
I really want to learn how to cook all of these dishes and will assist my host mom in making them someday (I hope). This upcoming week I'm also going to cook some Chinese food for the family and will be perusing the internet for good fried rice recipes.
There is a very real reason that Middle Eastern cooking is represented as pita, hummus and falafels in the United States. So much of what I have eaten is pita with a side of hummus - and this dish is what Jordanians call a light meal. Even outside of scooping hummus, it is very typical to eat a meal completely without utensils and to instead scoop everything up with the pita. The lunch I just had included me picking up pieces of fried egg with a pita scoop. Other scoopable dishes include tabbouleh (a mixture of parsley, mint, onion and garlic all mixed together with vinegar and olive oil) or mixtures of herbs, olive oil, and feta cheese.
Rice is also commonly served as a side dish and is often mixed with yogurt. The rice platter is also commonly mixed together with other ingredients rather than eaten separately, usually put together with chicken or lamb and some sort of vegetables.
Mansaf is the national dish of Jordan and is also one of my host mother's favorite dishes to make. She makes it with white rice that is coated in a layer of spice and oil, then mixes it together with dried yogurt and lamb that has been stewed with herbs. It is then garnished with almonds.
Another common dish is maqluba or "upside down", named after the fact that the rice is layered upside down over the chicken dish. Though it is popular in Jordan, the dish is of Palestinian origin. The chicken is grilled and browned together with a mixture of spices and herbs. Mama also fried eggplants for this purpose, simmering them until they are very tender and laying them on the very bottom.
There have been other dishes, all served with rice, including a delicious stew of spinach and garlic and another of creamy mushroom with seared chicken. However, none of these have names that are known to me so I will save it for another post. Instead, I will begin addressing dessert dishes.
The most common local dessert is undoubtedly a pastry called kunafa (pronounced kanafel). Extremely delicious as it is both sweet and savory, it is nevertheless extremely unhealthy and I cannot bring myself to eat too much of it. The base of the pastry is woven from thin noodle threads and fine dough which are all fried with butter. These are layered with cheese and syrup, then with more pastry dough and sprinkled with pistacchios. The entire concoction is again deep fried. It is essentially a heart attack squished into a single roll and yet so delicious.
I really want to learn how to cook all of these dishes and will assist my host mom in making them someday (I hope). This upcoming week I'm also going to cook some Chinese food for the family and will be perusing the internet for good fried rice recipes.
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