Souk el Tayeb meets Arabia

Now here’s some pictures of our wonderful dinner at Proef! First let’s start with the menu, by Kamal Mouzawak and us.

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!

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Who’s cookin’ for you? We are!

 

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

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.

Our Christmas cooking!

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!

Greedy again: Pumpkinhummous, Labne with pomegranate seeds & our favorite pistachespread

Yesterday we made some nice dips from Bismilla Arabia for the Dutch Youth Food Movement 1th anniversary dinner: we roasted the pumpkin in the oven instead of steaming (like we do in the book), which made it more nutty, then pureed the whole batch. We left the skin on, but it turned out to be too coarse, so we pressed it through a sieve: mixed with the tahina, olive oil, salt and some lemon juice, it turned out to be the most delicious. silky pumpkin hummus, just like we know it from both Israël and Palestine. On the side creamy salty labne with lots of pomegranate seeds and some olive oil from Lebanon, and the course Turkish style paste of pistache with parsley, white salty cheese, a little garlic and a green olive oil. Guys we got greedy again ourselves, dipping away with rustic bread. As good as with the usual flatbread!