Recently Merijn was in London for delicious. and visited the fantastic Ottolenghi places, the one in Islington, and met Yotam & Sami. It was so great to see their warm and superb Middle Eastern fusion kitchen live. Even nicer was Yotam’s warm enthusiasm. Merijn gave him our books, and we are proud he loves them as much as we loves his/their books. We made plans to cook together here in Amsterdam, as Yotam’s coming to promote his great Plenty book.  And to conclude this post: a festive cocktail (with or without champagne) with pomegranate for prosperity and a free future for the whole Arab world!

Prosperous pomegranate cocktail

Mix pomegranate juice with champaign or sparkling water, make mint sugar from fresh mint, lemon rind and sugar and dip the wet glasses in the mintlemonsugar. Pour in the pomogranate cocktail and add some seeds!

As often we tend to get an addiction when back from a foodie destination. So recently we made a Puglia feature for Dutch women’s magazine VIVA and we should share one of the recipes here. It just shows how poor kitchens can give so much satisfaction. So whenever it’s cold and you’re hungry, a plate of this farmers food will warm your stomach and satisfy your soul. At least that’s what it does to us. And this chickpea puree, does it remind us of something? did someone say hummus?

Chickpeas with endive and olive oil
Serves 4

800 g canned chickpeas ** (or 400 g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in advance in plenty of water …. much better!)
endives or scarola or another green leave vegetable from the bitter endive family.
garlic
anchovy fillets in oil
olive oil

Cook the chickpeas in a small amount of water during 5 minutes (if you’re using fresh chickpeas, boil them in plenty of water for about 45 minutes until tender: of course this is much nicer than the canned friends). Cut the endive coarsely. Heat a little oil with lots of chopped garlic and add to taste quite a few anchovy fillets. Allow to simmer 2-3 minutes, add the endive. Stir fry until the endive is almost completely wilted. Mash the chickpeas with a little cooking liquid, salt and a generous dash of olive oil until a thick puree. Serve with some more olive oil  and next to it, the endives!

Image courtesy Sven Benjamins.

A beautiful countrysite rustic and pure.

Antonella Millarte, our Pugliese olive oil expert told us there are 60 million olive trees in Puglia! One for every Italian.

There were some chef’s from Italy and some more from nordic countries, as far up as the talented Magnus Nilsson’s Faviken, in the north of Sweden. We brought along Wally Bosman, chef at our Amsterdam favorite Toscanini restaurant (look how he’s enjoying the olives in the above picture), who made some nice dishes (with chickpeas, raw mackerel and orzo) but it was Magnus who deserved to win! But aside from these wonderful dishes the chefs presented with the high quality extra vergine Coratina olive oil -which is an oil that is often still stone crushed, temperature not higher than 27°C and has therefore and also due to the Coratina variety high levels of antioxidants and a very pure taste of green tomatoes and artichokes
-we discovered something very very interesting! Not only was everyone telling us Puglia still has Arabic influence in their food, but we could taste it, like everywhere! Mashed up chickpeas like hummus, with cooked bitter vegetables (like endives) and other indigenous bean vegetables dishes, lentils, in combination with fresh cheeses (like the burrata), the typical sweets all was pointing in the same direction. And even the ancient olive trees, as they came to Puglia from Greece and Syria. We’ll be back soon in Puglia for our next book.

Arabia’s Pistachiospread & Pumpkinhummous & cauliflower couscous (see previous post)

Hommos & labne

Tabbouleh – the parsley burghul salad with lots of lemon juice

Fattoush – the fresh salad with mint, parsley romaine lettuce, crispy golden flatbread and pomegranate molasses

Manaiish za’atar – little pizza (manoushe) with za’atar

Salatet el rahebb – Roasted aubergine  with tomato and spring onion

Frikeh with wild herbs – traditional soaked briefly cooked frikeh mixed with rosemary, tym and oregano: our version.

Arabia’s  yufka rolls with garlic yoghurt and hot paprika oil.

Arabia’s pistachio custard

Sfouf b debs – Lebanese cake with carob

Kamal arrived on sunday with Christine, his business partner in Souk el Tayeb and Magyu, who owns our favorite little fish restaurant on the rocks in Batroun on the seaside. A lovely brunch was waiting for them…of course this time with Dutch delicacies and some good friends who went with us to Lebanon, of course including Marije Vogelzang from Proef. We were very happy cause another good friend specially arrived for the occasion of the dinner; Shir from the Tel Aviv farmers market. After an afternoon filled with food, stories and laughter we were ready for the real work the next day.

But…not without starting the day with warm apple pie at one of the oldest café’s in Amsterdam Café Papeneiland. From eleven on it was cooking time at Proef! As we are now used to cooking together, we did so many times in Lebanon, it was a pleasant morning and afternoon, with a nice lunchbreak at The Bakkerswinkel, and everything done in time. Of course Magyu was in charge of the aubergine salad, but she took the advantage of doing the pomegranate dressing for the fattouche, which was basically the pomegranate molasses, some garlic, salt and olive oil mixed together. Lotte was back in the kitchen too, sometimes almost in funny despair cause Kamal was telling her to squeeze the lemons like this, and then Magyu said oh no, you have to do it like this…which was of course the complete other way round. That’s what we call the Lebanese way…your own way.  But we were all proud when everything was looking so fresh and appetizing all set and done on the tables. Waiting for hungry forks. And then the evening came, people sat at the tables, laughing, eating, drinking and enjoying every bite (so they told us all the time). And we were the happiest people on earth, sharing friendship and good food!

Last night we had our wonderful dinner at Marije Vogelzang’s Proef! with as special guests our dear friend Kamal Mouzawak from the Lebanese farmers market Souk el Tayeb in Beirut. In may and july we were cooking at Tawlet, his new restaurant in Beirut’s Mar Michael and now we were so happy to be cooking with him again in Amsterdam in this special location. And proud of course, since Kamal promoted us this summer as being Souk el Tayeb’s family. And whoever has been in Beirut and visited Souk el Tayeb’s wonderful saturday’s market knows how honoured we feel to be part of it! As soon as we have all pictures we’ll put them here, with the menu, explanation and all.

But now back to a week ago, to another wonderful dinner at Proef, see the menu of the post before. Cooking that night was great fun, because our new friend Lotte came to help us, and it was fluent! So we came to some great adjustments of Bismilla Arabia recipes: our bread & butter pudding with dates & orangeflowerwater transformed from delicious to fantastic. This was the trick. The dates were a bit hard, so we soaked them in some warm water with orangeflowerwater, they became fragrant and moist, instead of only sprinkling the pudding with the orangeflowerwater later on. Then we almost burned our almonds in the oven: because they were already quite brown we didn’t want to mix them in, instead we used some grated white almonds to mix in with the bread and cream or milk. Lotte came with an excellent solution, she pounded the toasted almonds in the mortar and grinder to a coarse powder and we sprinkled them on top. It was sooo delicious we even forgot to take a picture of this new version. So the picture is the ‘old’ one from the Bismilla Arabia book!

Here’s the adjusted recipe

Bread & butter pudding with dates and orange blossom water

When we think of the Sahara, we think of dates and bread: the inspiration for this bread pudding that you can use again as a power breakfast or after a light dinner, full of energy from almonds and dates.

Serves 4

Moroccan bread or Turkish pide

300 g soft dates

orangeblossom water

½ l milk or cream

3 eggs

50 g soft butter

75 g almonds shavings

date syrup (available from Moroccan or Turkish store)

50 g almonds, golden roasted

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Divide the bread into pieces. Stone the dates and pull them apart, sprinkle them with some warm water en orangeflowerwater. Whisk the milk and the eggs and soft butter. Mix with your hands the pieces of bread with almonds, dates, milk mixture, and a dash of date syrup. Spoon in a greased baking dish, sprinkle with some date syrup and if you like some more orangeblossomwater. Bake the bread and butter pudding for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Pound the almonds in a mortar and grinder and sprinkle over the pudding. EAT WARM!

It’s such a nice feeling to cook for people that specially came for you. Of course it’s pure joy for us to cook from our new book, all these dishes we love so much. The first monday we were a bit late, due to a presentation at PINC. which was in a city at an hour from Amsterdam. And to make things worse we needed to go past The Lebanese bakery in Almere, because we forgot to get the bread the day before. But there it was: warm and tender…everyone who knows the joy of freshly baked flatbread (when you have to open the plastic bag to get the moist out) knows what we mean. Then our saving angel was there in the person of Marnix, a talented upcoming chef, who was eager to chop lots of herbs and onions for us. Lucky girls we were! Everything was done just in time, and reactions were overly enthousiastic and we were proud as mothers with their babies. The next monday was very relaxed because we didn’t have to go nowhere (well we were missing out on the event of the launch of a big restaurant guide, but ah isn’t life about choices).

So cooking was filling our day, nice and peaceful. All set & done, and the evening went very well with some 32 happy guests. Two dinners yet to come…and we are looking forward to these: the big ones. Coming monday 50 guests and next monday another 50 guests. Which means literally fully booked, no seats left! Next monday 29th will be extra special as our good friends from Lebanon will join us, with Kamal Mouzawak cooking with us Lebanese dishes. Check out the menu later next week.

Next monday’s menu on 22th will have some slight changes:

Pumpkinhummus & Pistachiospread, Labne & Za’atar

Parsleysalad with pomegranate seeds and tahina

Yoghurtsalad with lemon & green peppers

Jaffa’s orange salad with fennel & almonds

Kisir

Sardinian vegetable couscous with pinenuts from Carloforte

Yufka rolls with garlic yoghurt and hot pepper oil

Pistachiocustard

Bread & Butter pudding with dates and orangeflowerwater

Oh boy, do we like spices! We just love them.The smell of the souk in Damascus we’ll never forget; the air pregnant with pungent sweet spicy almost musky aromas that make you dream. Once you put your nose in the typical za’atar from Syria it works as an instant time machine: back in the souk in a minute.

It’s because their za’atar is different from most za’atars you’ll find in the Middle East: not only is it a mix of the wild thyme, sumak and sesameseeds they put in a secret mix of cumin and other ‘warm’ spices: this perfume fills the little streets. Another favorite spiceblend is the Moroccan one: Ras el Hanout. You will find this blend in every Moroccan shop, but doing it yourself at home is ever so rewarding. The name says it all: the spiceblend of the shopowner is the translation of Ras el Hanout. So why not take all the freedom we want, in the end this is our shop: so this is how today’s ras el hanout tastes like. Good thing as well as with many things in life: today’s ras el hanout is never the same as tomorrow’s. This time we made a sweet and savory one. The sweet one is full of rose petals, staranise, anise, cinnamon, cardamon, jasmine flowers, fennelseeds. As for quantities, this is just something you need to feel…we are always careful with powerful pungent spices like cardamon or cumin, but it’s just a blend according to your personal private taste, so if you like a certain spice very much, be welcome to add more, just smell and taste with your fingertip if it’s right. The smell is very important. A good starting point is to start with little bits of everything and then add more as you go along. Oh and this time we didn’t have lavender, but that’s very nice to add too. We love to make the chicken stew with this one, and why not use it in spice cookies or even a cake?

The  savoury one we put in cumin (not too much!) grains of paradise, black cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, different kinds of black pepper, pink pepper, pul biber, long pepper and coriander seeds. Great in a lamb stew with fava beans and quinces!

So what do you need? All spices you can find in your larder, a coffee & spice grinder and your nose and tongue!

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.

Image: courtesy Sven Benjamins.

Some months ago we made a delicious. veggie tajine for a huge dinner at the Environmental film festival, here in Amsterdam. And finally it became even a vegan version, without any plan to do so. We just followed our tastebuds! It was a very colourfull dish with beetroot, pumpkin, turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, artichoke hearts, all golden roasted or stewed with a thick sauce of Turkish paprikapaste, onion and garlic and topped of with generous amounts of a wonderfull spice paste: a blend of roasted almonds, parsley, cuminseeds, fennelseeds, carawayseeds, pimenton, and olive oil, basically a variation on the Catalan picada. Wow, it was just an explosion of taste in our mouth and people were blown away by the dish. We made way to much, so we ended up making doggy bags for everyone, and recently I ran into a girl who was there that evening and told me she had been enjoying the left overs the whole week. Now that’s what we call sustainable! We ourselves loved it so much too we decided to fix it in our weekly culinary column at VIVA magazine…and the recipe was covered as well in the daily newspaper De Volkskrant. And as the weather in this part of the world is getting worse and worse, this is our perfect comfort food.

Here’s the recipe:

Vegetable tagine with picada

2 sweet onions
1 clove of garlic
olive oil
2 ripe tomatoes
2 tbsp Turkish pepper paste
salt
1 small butternut squash
1 large sweet potato
1 large waxy potato
2 large carrots
2 turnips
4 young beets
4 artichoke hearts (fresh or frozen if necessary)

the picada:
200 g almonds
oil for frying
1 bunch of parsley
4 tablespoons fennel seeds
3 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 tbsp pimentón
salt
pul biber

Chop onions, garlic and tomatoes. Heat a dash of olive oil in a large tagine or casserole and cook the mixture about 15 minutes, add the paprika paste and some salt. Peel and slice the other vegetables in roughly equal pieces. Add a little water to the onion mixture and simmer for about 30 minutes on low heat. Fry the almonds in a golden brown layer of oil. Drain and cool. Chop the parsley roughly. Roast the spices except the pimentón 1 minutes in a hot dry frying pan. Mix the almonds in a food processor with the parsley, ¾ of the spice mixture, the pimentón to a fine paste and stir vigorously with a little olive oil and season with salt. Spoon the picada generously over the roasted vegetables, sprinkle with pul biber and the rest of the spices.

Last friday we were already hearing Christmas bells. Our own of course: cooking new Arabia food for this years coming Christmas issue of the Dutch delicious. www.deliciousmagazine.nl It was in a great studio in Amsterdam, Studio 13, with lots of light, a big kitchen and many people, ‘cause usually there are two parellel shoots. So when photographer Harold Pereira and stylist Maaike Koorman were busy on the right side of the studio, we were cooking on the left side. And as the building is some sort of a loft (it used to be a tobacco factory) everything is open, and so is the kitchen. We found ourselves  surrounded by the people of the ‘other’ shoot going on, all the time. So guess what: we were explaining how to make couscous and doing some sort of workshop while preparing our dishes. We felt soooo sorry we could not let them taste yet, everything still had to be captured by Harold’s camera. We made a delicious yoghurtsoup with saffron & almonds, the by now famous cauliflower couscous, deliciously warm comfort chickens with cumin, cinnamon and apricots, a crunchy salad of raw thinly sliced veggies like carrots, fennel, orange and tangy fresh herbs like mint, dill with crunchy aromatic toasted fennelseeds and a zingy orange dressing. Sidedish was a delicious pilaf of bulghur with walnuts, paprikapaste and mint. To top it off our delicious pistachecustard in a new version with lemon and candied orange and grapefruit on the side. Of course you all have to wait for the Dutch Christmas delicious. issue to read and cook and get your saliva going for these ones. We’ll publish by then the translated recipes in English here. To get you to going some pics of the shoot to reveal a tiny little bit!