Something came up last minute and my grandmother’s sister has to travel; everything, though, should be fine. I spent the last couple of weeks looking at apartments and finally moved a few days ago.

I unpacked my things, tested the washer, took a deep breath, and made soup. Chicken noodle and rice soup. I learned this recipe from lunch at my friend Georgette’s house. Georgette, or Juju as everyone likes to call her, is one of those people you can’t not like. Not even if you tried. She possesses that tender grandmotherly spirit that loves and cares for everyone. She can’t help it. Georgette is in her sixties, is recently-widowed, and has a heart made of pure gold.

Tant Juju

Tant Juju (Aunt Juju) invited me over for lunch several times while I was looking at apartments. Aside from being an angel, she is also an incredible cook. Her style is simple and homey. She makes the kind of food that you eat with gusto, and in generous servings. Whenever I say something too polite she tells me to stop acting like a stranger; she considers me family.

Tant Juju cooks out of a tiny kitchen that barely fits the two of us. While she cooks I usually stand by the doorway of her kitchen and keep her company. We chat, but mostly I observe from a distance. There are no measuring cups or spoons; no hesitation, no fuss. Her cooking reminds me of a good dance performance. Tant Juju is graceful, but assertive in the way she cooks. This is her domain. You could tell by the way she adds ingredients with confidence that she’s been doing this for a while.

The day Tant Juju invited me for over for soup, I actually went out of courtesy. I had already grabbed a quick bite to eat in the street, but you can’t say ‘no’ to Tant Juju. She won’t have it. It’s part of Aleppan hospitality: eat, eat, eat, then eat some more. So I went. And I ate. And I loved. And ate some more. It was perfect.

In celebration of Tant Juju’s amazingly simple and delicious soup, this was the first dish I made in my new home. Try this recipe before winter is gone. Like Tant Juju, it’s impossible not to like.

mise en place

chicken shower

Before adding any of the vegetables, try to remove as much of the scum from the surface of the stock as possible. This way the vegetables won’t get in your way.

skim off scum

rough chop

in they go!

homemade stock

shredded chicken

toasty noodles

chicken noodle and rice soup

I don’t know why or when it hit me, but the other day, as I was laying in bed after lunch, I realized I had been struck with a case of homesickness. My stomach was in knots and my thoughts floated home, across the Atlantic. We were told by the Fulbright committee during our pre-departure orientation that this is common; I wasn’t worried. This period of longing, however gloomy, gave me time to clear my thoughts and get other work done. I took a trip with friends to the outskirts of Aleppo and also worked on programming — behind the scenes geeky stuff that secretly makes me happy.

sunset in the outskirts of Aleppo

As for my blog, I think it has also benefited from this period of thinking and rethinking. It has planted in me a new seed of enthusiasm and great ideas.

I consider my blog my baby. As of today, it is 3 years and 5 months old. It may sound strange to those who don’t blog, but I feel my blog has evolved over the years and has made me grow in ways I had never anticipated. My blog opened my eyes to web design and web development; it continuously fuels my immense passion for photography. My blog connects me to wonderful people and encourages me to try new foods and food techniques. It offers me a creative space to write and express my feelings in words, pictures, and videos. And although I have on-and-off spells where I feel unmotivated to produce, this is something I’ve realized is a part of life. I have learned to grow from these bursts of inspiration and grapple with the moments when my mind wanders and my stomach is in knots.

One of the things that makes food blogging so appealing, I think, is the community it is built on. When I write a blog and post it on this tiny corner of the internet, I feel I am sharing stories and experiences with friends gathered around my dining room table. It’s an amazing feeling. It is real and intimate and funny and mushy and I love it. This is a metaphor that has stuck with me from early on, and one that has kept me focused on what my blog means to me. Thank you, always, for your encouragement.

Today, in celebration of rethinking, I want to share with you a recipe that I’ve blogged about before: Muhammara, a rich and tangy Middle Eastern spread of red peppers and chopped walnuts. It’s a spread that should never be missing from your refrigerator. My aunt cleans red peppers and keeps them in a bag in her freezer for on-the-fly muhammara. It’s a spread that you can put together in 5 minutes and tastes better if you prepare it the day before. The flavors meld and food magic happens. In Aleppo muhammara is commonly served as a side platter as part of the mezze spread, but I put in on almost everything. Sandwiches being my favorite so far. Just a light smear on the bread does the trick. Try it, and let me know.

In the olden days, muhammara used to be considered a spread for royalty and the wealthy upperclass because of the ingredients required to make it. Walnuts and red peppers still aren’t cheap, but have become more accessible. Today the amount of walnuts you add to your muhammara has even become a pseudo status symbol.

Since we’re friends, and I know you won’t laugh (OK, you could laugh a little bit), I’ve also dug up this old video of me making muhammara for a Food Network audition. The video was filmed and produced by my very talented friend, Marilyn Rivchin, Senior Lecturer of Filmmaking at Cornell University. I didn’t get the part, but this clip reminds me of how much I love cooking.

The ingredients for this muhammara are mostly the same as the last recipe I posted, but my aunt taught me to add a dash of sugar to the spicy dip. It’s not traditional, but it works. It rounds out the spiciness of the pepper paste and balances the tang of the pomegranate molasses. I added it as an optional ingredient in the recipe.

mise en place

chopped walnuts + kaak (كعك)

clean peppers, inside and out

red pepper puree

pomegranate molasses

extra virgin olive oil

muhammara (محمرة)

typical mezze spread

In my early days of experimenting with muhammara in Aleppo, I came up with this simple snack that I now eat on a regular basis. It’s simple and incredibly delicious: a slice of Aleppan Mortadella, topped with a dollop of creamy hummus, and a kiss of spicy muhammara seals the deal. Enjoy!

my favorite snack

Almost every lunch, dinner, or formal event in Aleppo begins with an endless spread of mezze. Tabletops brimmed with plates of appetizers. Hummus and Muhammara. Labne and cured olives. Roasted nuts and homemade pickles. These are some of the popular ones. There is also yalanjii, vegetarian stuffed vegetables, which I still have to blog about. Every family has their favorites, their own style of hosting, but the common theme is abundance. The food should appear endless — this is the unspoken rule of Middle Eastern hospitality. You’d be hard pressed to find a gap between the plates.

A popular mezze in Aleppo is the Mortadella Halabiye, or Aleppan Mortadella. Not to be confused with the popular Italian cured meat, Aleppan Mortadella is much smaller in size and is blanched, not cured. Also, Italian Mortadella is made from pork, whereas the Aleppan version is made with either beef or lamb. On a couple of occasions, however, I’ve seen chicken varieties, as well.

Aleppan Mortadella is usually served as a starter as part of a spread of mezze — leftovers go into sandwiches. This is how my aunt taught me. You take fresh bread — pita or baguette — add a liberal shmear of hummus, cover with slices of Aleppan Mortadella, fanned out, and voilà. It’s that simple. If you add some muhammara to the sandwich, even better; it gives it a spicy contrast, not enough to make you cry though, just smile.

Now, to make Aleppan Mortadella, you want to start out with kaak (كعك), a Middle Eastern kind of bread stick that is incredibly crunchy and usually served alongside tea. Middle Eastern or Mediterranean stores should have it. If you can’t find kaak, however, you can use breadcrumbs; ultimately, its goal is to bind the mortadella.

kaak (كعك)

Middle Eastern style breadcrumbs

mise en place

The next ingredient is the habra, which is basically very lean meat, essentially fat-less. A good habra should have no fat. I’ve blogged about it before. Habra is the basis of all kibbeh, which makes it readily available at any butcher in the Middle East. In the States, however, I usually ask my butcher to ground for me top-round beef, with all its fat removed. My butcher even goes the extra length to ground my meat early in the morning, before they ground any other meat, so that fat inside the machine doesn’t get into my habra. Then, once I get home, I process the meat in my food processor with a few ice cubes until a paste is formed — that’s all habra is.

The rest is mixing the ingredients together.

seasoned mixing

I noticed my aunt doesn’t mix the ground kaak with the meat all at once, only handfuls at a time. The reason being you might not need it all. The best mortadella, she told me, is made with as little kaak as possible. Only mix in as much as you need. The goal is a mixture that barely comes together and holds its shape.

oh, there’s garlic, too

add the pistachios into the center

The reason for not mixing the pistachios in the beginning is so that they remain in the center of the mortadella. This is for presentation purposes.

cover and into the fridge

H₂O

some apple cider vinegar

simmer

Aleppan Mortadella (مرتديلا حلبية)

hummus + muhammara + mortadella = best friends

First post of 2011. Here it goes:

On the first day of the new year my aunt and I were invited to her brother’s house for a traditional Aleppan New Years lunch, Kibbeh b’Labaniyeh (كبة بلبنية): kibbeh balls slowly cooked in a creamy yogurt sauce finished with a saute of minced garlic; the garnish: fragrant flecks of dried mint and a sprinkle of spicy paprika; the taste: heavenly. This is the mac-and-cheese of Middle Eastern food — comfort snuggled in a bowl. Its character is similar to that of a stew, hearty and satisfying. Kibbeh b’Labaniyeh is popular across Syria and Lebanon in the cold winter months, however, Christian families across Aleppo serve this dish as a traditional lunch on New Years to symbolize a clean, pure start to the year ahead. I blogged about it before and included a recipe. You must try it while the weather is still cold.

kibbeh blabaniyeh (كبة بلبنية)

The festivities in Aleppo, however, continue well past New Years day. This is something I thought was interesting and worth exploring. It makes sense that not everyone gets to spend the holidays with their extended network on the day of the actual celebration. That’s why in Aleppo families usually host small, relatively informal gatherings days after the holidays, in this case Christmas and New Years, where they invite friends and extended family they didn’t have the opportunity to be with. I went to a few of these gatherings with my aunt. Regardless of how informal these gatherings are, you can rest assured food is involved; in Aleppo, it always is.

Coffee, assorted nuts, chocolates, cake, tea, and spreads like hummus are usually the common denominator; these are things that are almost expected at these gatherings. My aunt’s sister-in-law, for example, presented the usual spread of starters, and also offered her guests a variety of her homemade fruit preserves, which included preserved walnuts, a preserve that takes over a month to prepare. Very few people still know how to make it properly (I’m working on a recipe).

I became inspired by these gatherings; a wonderful way to celebrate with everyone you love, regardless of the day. Since my aunt has five children, two who live abroad, and each with their own families, I proposed hosting a gathering at her place, and insisted I would help setup. My aunt, actually my grandmother’s sister, usually gets invited by her kids to spend time at their homes; I had a feeling she missed having them over at her house. Like a typical Halabiye (Aleppan), the first question she asked was, what should we make?

We decided that the star of the occasion should be rice pudding (رز بالحليب) to go along with the white theme.

My first job for this gathering was to buy the milk for the rice pudding. My aunt sent me to a dukan, or “small shop” in Arabic. Think of a dukan like a convenience store minus the slurpees and abundance of junk food. The dukan I visited sells olives, shankleesh (type of Middle Eastern cheese–see picture below), yogurt, milk, eggs, and other pantry staples.

milk, cheeses and pantry items

milkman

When I asked for milk, the first question I got was “how many kilos?”. I have never bought milk in kilogram before, only liters and gallons.

I first asked for three kilos of milk, unsure of how many kilos my aunt needed for the recipe. The milkman opened a large stainless steel cooler against the back wall of the dukan and with a big ladle, began to pour milk into a plastic bag. It didn’t look like a lot, so I asked if he could fill me up another bag with three additional kilos. This is fresh, unpasturized milk, which, the milkman told me, had to be boiled before use. I paid 120 Syrian pounds, approximately $2.50, for what turned out to be a gallon and a half of unpasturized milk (1 kilo of milk is approximately equivalent to 1 Liter).

mise en place

The debate between short grain vs long grain when it comes to rice pudding is endless. A shorter grain has more starch and will yield a thicker, almost risotto-like, rice pudding, while the longer grain rice will retain its texture more and not give off as must starch into the milk. My aunt uses short grain or what they refer to in Aleppo as riz musry (رز مصري), or Egyptian rice.

short grain rice

give it a good rinse

Once the milk comes to a simmer, you add the rice into the milk, along with about 1 cup of water. The extra cup of water helps cook the rice better, according to my aunt, who says that it is meant to replace the water that evaporates during the cooking process. I feel that the extra cup of water also helps cut the richness of the milk.

in goes the rice

one for everyone

rice pudding (رز بالحليب)

excitement

yum!

Happy 2011*

*Photo Credit: Zaki Khanji

I hope everyone has a happy new year and a wonderful start to 2011.

Right before Christmas I went on a chilly, but pleasant, one-week vacation to Prague and Geneva. It was beautiful. Prague is like a fairytale come Christmas, and Geneva, well… I spent most of my time in Geneva worrying whether I’ll get stuck because of the blizzard. Their chocolate, however, is top-notch.

Prague + Christmas = Fairytale

huge cathedrals and all

glad I was able to make it back…

You can browse through the rest of my prague/geneva picture on my Flickr.

Luckily, I did make it back to Aleppo in time for Christmas, and New Years is now only a few hours away. The streets are still decorated with bright Christmas lights and the air has an enjoyable crispness to it — not too cold, but cold enough to make it feel like the holidays are here.

These are some picture from my Christmas in Aleppo.

Aleppo — Christmas 2010

Christmas Lights

kibbe tarabilsiyye (كبة طرابلسية)

bastirma

Bûche de Noël

not Christmas without Santa, right?

Christmas spirit

happiness

celebration

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year