Iftar offerings
Florence:
I think its helpful to interpret foods that perhaps you aren't familiar with but enjoy. I really love traditional sambousa which is usually triangular stuffed pastry made of a very thin wrapper. The stuffing is mostly either spiced lamb, chicken, pungent white cheese, or vegetables. These tasty treats are not to be confused with samosas (which are in the same family).
Interpretations of food are necessary. That's what makes each dish uniquely ones own. As much as Vicky and I cook together and have influenced each other palettes if you told each one of us to prepare the same dish, we would probably come up with something similar but tasting completely different. Isn't that fantastic?
I decided to reimagine the sambousa recipe with different flavors based on availability and also my own sensibilities. I prepared both vegetarian (spinach, artichoke and mushroom) and beef (with onion confit) sambousas. The room was definitely divided over the favorite of the two varieties but as Vicky preferred the beef I'll share that recipe below.
Beef and onion confit sambousa
Ingredients:
2 lbs lean ground beef
1 medium finely chopped yellow onion
2 shallots finely chopped
hand full fresh basil leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
black pepper to taste
1 tbsp celery salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Pinch of ground cinnamon
One jar onion confit
Package of store bought puff pastry wrappers
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
2 stalks finely chopped celery
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 egg yolk
1/8 cup sesame seeds
Method
In a large well heated pan add olive oil. Add the meat and sauté lightly for three minutes. Add in onion, shallots, celery, garlic and continue to stir until the meat is medium browned about 10 minutes. Add basil, thyme, pepper, celery salt, cumin, cinnamon. After a few moments add 2/3's of the jar of onion confit and continue to sauté until the meat is tender and brown but not dry.
Set aside the meat mixture to completely cool.
On the face of a single wrapper, spread a small coating of onion confit. Add large spoon of the meat mixture onto the wrapper. Seal the wrapper in a triangle formation and brush with egg yolk. Sprinkle each triangle with sesame seeds.
Bake the finished pastry on parchment paper for 30 minutes or until golden at 350 degrees. Serving warm is best.
Vicky:
A welcome invitation to join friends with iftar feasting gave me a chance to test out a new recipe with a delicious middle eastern slant. The savoury dishes were already covered with Flo's delicious sambousa, along with koshari, a carb lovers dream of rice, macaroni and lentils, topped with crispy fried onions - deliciously tangy and tasty, and molokheya, a soup made from the spinach-like molokheya and chicken, served over rice.
I did what I love best - a sweet treat. These little biscuits are light and flavourful, and also gluten-free. They are on the sweet side with the rose hints but the cardamom balances the flavours with its aromatic edge.
Rose and cardamom biscuits
Ingredients
1 tbsp rosewater
125g caster sugar
2 small egg yolks
100g unsalted butter softened
60ml vegetable oil
1 tsp ground cardamom
250g rice flour
Preheat your oven to 190C/375F and line two baking sheets with baking paper.
Make a syrup by heating the sugar with four tbsp water in a small pan over a medium heat. Keep stirring until the sugar dissolves and then stir in the rosewater. Set aside and leave to cool.
Use a mixer or food processor and beat the egg yolks, butter, oil, cardamom and rice flour untiled combined. Make sure to combine the mixture well but do not over beat. Add the rosewater syrup to the mixture gradually, beating until fully combined.
Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a 1cm nozzle or a thick sandwich bag (what i use) and snip off the corner. Pipe in about 5cm spirals leaving good gaps in between. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes or until very pale golden, then remove and leave to cool on the trays for ten minutes before removing to a cooling rack.
The biscuits are best eaten fairly fresh but will be fine for a couple of days. They work perfectly with a cup of tea - of course.