Our own little restaurant!

We are so excited! Every monday starting 8th of november we will be cooking Bismilla Arabia dishes at eating designer Marije Vogelzang’s Proef! restaurant on the Westergasterrein in Amsterdam. Marije came with us to Lebanon for our first book Arabia and we became close friends ever since. It’s so great to finally have to chance to collaborate and cook our dishes in her fantastic little cosy place. Marije is of course designing beautiful drawings like these ones, to introduce our dishes…And there are still some seats left for 15th and 22th of october, and maybe if you’re quick even for the first one this coming monday. Check it out and send a mail to reserveer@proefamsterdam.nl & www.proefamsterdam.nl

Here’s the menu!

Our Mezze: Pistachespread & pumpkinhummus & labne & za’atar with flatbread

Turkish walnutsalad with sour hot green peppers

Our Kisir, bulghursalad with paprikapaste, lots of herbs and pomegranatemolasses

Catalan garden salad with figs & hazelnuts

Fregola with wild herbs

Yufkarolls with lamb meat, garlic yoghurt & pul biber oil

Pistachecustard & sweet couscous with orange rind, almonds and raisins.

Summer couscous!

This summer we were in hot Lebanon again and made up a new recipe. And as always scarcity brings out the best ideas. When we found in the our friend Tamar’s kitchen a cauliflower and the superb Lebanese lemons (they’re like the famous Amalfi lemons or Sicilian lemons from Italy) a new dish was born: a cold summer couscous from finely grated cauliflower, lots of lemon juice, lemon rind, salt, fruity green olive oil and a generous amount of golden fried chopped pinenuts: there you go! The cauliflower is fresh and crunchy, the lemon juice fresh and aromatic, the olive oil gives a fruity taste and you end with the nuttiness of the pinenuts and preferably some fleur de sel or flake salt. At Souk el Tayeb’s Tawlet restaurant in Beirut we prepared it again, and it was an instant success and it remained that way anytime we do it. This coming Friday it will be part of our Middle Eastern Christmas buffet for the Christmas shoot for the Dutch delicious. magazine. Mmm…delicious.!