Greek yogurt
Pulled Chicken Sandwiches – Djaj Musahab
This is called ‘pulled chicken’, but I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs for ease. You can serve this chicken in a crusty bread, or wrapped in flatbread. You can also eat it with rice and a salad. I prefer it as a sandwich, to feel like I have just stopped at a food cart in the center of a Levantine city.
Tahini sauce
1 Tablespoon tahini
1 Tablespoon Greek yogurt
juice of ½ lemon
¼ cup water
In a bowl, stir tahini, yogurt, and lemon juice, until it forms a paste. Add water, stirring smooth.
Pulled Chicken for Sandwiches – Djaj Musahab
2 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 teaspoons allspice
2 teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoons turmeric
2 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup yogurt
¼ cup vinegar
Place chicken in large, non-reactive bowl. Add all ingredients, and stir to coat chicken thoroughly.
Let marinate in fridge – half an hour to overnight.
Heat oil in large skillet. Add chicken, saute 2-3 minutes over high heat. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low and cook 5 more minutes.
Add mushrooms, onions, and peppers.
Return heat to high and saute for a further 3-4 minutes.
Eat drizzled with tahini sauce, and sprinkled with sumac.
May be eaten as a sandwich filling or with rice and salad.
Deconstructed Levantine Cabbage Rolls (Lazy Malfouf)
I felt like eating stuffed cabbage, but didn’t have time to separate and boil the leaves, then stuff them one by one, so I decided to make it lazy-style. It’s not as pretty, but tastes very good on those days you just don’t have the time for rolling them.
To be clear – It isn’t a replacement for the original – and certainly not something you’d make for company – but a quick, easy weeknight option has its place.
We had this with salad, a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, and a generous squeeze of lemon.
Deconstructed Levantine Cabbage Rolls (Lazy Malfouf)
1-2 tablespoons cooking oil
½ cup onion, finely chopped
½ cup parsley, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups sliced/chopped cabbage (about half a small head of cabbage)
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 cup ground beef (or lamb)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup crushed tomatoes (or 1 chopped fresh tomato and its juice)
2 cups Jasmine rice, rinsed with cold water till water runs clear
salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
2-3 cups stock (chicken or vegetable stock-or a good place to use the turkey stock you made after Thanksgiving 🙂 )
Lemon wedges, plain yogurt
Heat oil in pot. Add onions and garlic. Saute for 2 minutes. Add cabbage, parsley, spices, and half a teaspoon of salt. Saute 2 more minutes. Add 1/2 cup water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it looks like this.
Meanwhile, in a skillet, saute ground beef and 2 cloves of garlic, until the meat is cooked through. Drain off fat, and add meat to cabbage.
Add tomatoes, rice, and 2-3 cups stock (start with 2 cups, adding more if needed), and salt and pepper to taste. Stir well. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover.
Cook 12-15 minutes more, till rice is cooked and liquid is absorbed.
Serve with plain yogurt and lemon wedges to squeeze onto rice.
Optional step : heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil over high heat. Add 1-2 cloves chopped garlic, and cook, stirring constantly, until garlic is golden brown. Pour oil and garlic onto rice.
Crustless Noodle and Roasted Vegetable Quiche
I had some leftover cooked wide egg noodles and some roasted vegetables from a previous meatloaf meal. The meatloaf was eaten up right away, and neither leftover side dish would have been enough on its own, so I decided to make them both into a sort of crust-less quiche.
(There was about 1 cup of chopped noodles and 1 cup of chopped vegetables, but you could do a little more of one, and a little less of the other, total volume of filling is what is important rather than ratio)
Crust-less Noodle and Vegetable Quiche
2 cups noodles + vegetables
3 eggs
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
½ cup milk
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
½ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 Tablespoons bread crumbs
salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a mixing bowl, mix eggs, cheese, yogurt, milk, and spices. Add noodles and vegetables and stir gently to combine.
Pour into oiled 9″ pie plate. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Bake for 40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.
Minted Cucumber Yogurt Salad- Khiar biLaban
This is a refreshing summer salad, made with fresh cucumbers and mint. The traditional Levantine recipe is nice and garlicky, but I also like to add some finely minced or grated onion. It goes very well with kabobs/grilled meats as well as with rice dishes. It is also good to eat alongside very spicy foods and curries, as the yogurt and mint help to moderate the palate’s flame 🙂
Minted Cucumber Yogurt Salad – Khiar biLaban
1 tablespoon finely minced (or grated) onion
1 small clove garlic, finely minced, and mashed with the side of a knife
2 teaspoons fresh mint, finely minced (or 1 teaspoon dry mint)
3 mini/persian cucumbers, chopped in small, uniform pieces
1 cup yogurt, preferably Greek
Salt and Pepper, to taste (at least 1/2 teaspoon salt)
Stir yogurt well, so that it becomes creamy in texture.
Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to incorporate completely.
The salad could be eaten immediately, but I prefer to allow it to chill for an hour or two, especially if dried mint is used.
Lamb in Yogurt Sauce (or Wannabe Mansaf)
Not too long ago, I posted a picture on my Facebook page of a mansaf. A friend asked me if it was hard to make, and if I could share the recipe. While it is not hard at all to make, it is hard to make unless you have the right ingredients. The key ingredient is laban jameed, or a dried yogurt. I know that there is powdered jameed here in the US, but I have never tried it myself, and have heard that they are not as good as the ones my mother in law supplies me with.
I finally was able to come up with a reasonable facsimile using regular Greek yogurt from the supermarket. Something I found is that it tastes even better reheated, because it gets tangier, which is what you really want in this dish.
This recipe will show the traditional way of layering the pita, rice, and lamb. With the sauce on the side in bowls. You could also just skip the layering, and put lamb with sauce in bowls, and serve alongside rice and/or bread.
Lamb in Yogurt Sauce
Lamb and stock:
2 lb lamb shoulder
1 teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 onion
6 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
2 cardamom pods
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tablespoon cooking oil (or ghee)
Yogurt Sauce:
1 T cornstarch
½ cup cold water
3 cups yogurt
1 egg
2 cups lamb stock
½ teaspoon turmeric
2 cups jasmine rice (uncooked)
2 pita bread (white or wheat)- torn into bite-sized pieces
Parsley, chopped, for garnish
¼ c slivered almonds
2 Tablespoons oil
Place lamb in large pot with nions, garlic, spices, cardamom, bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste, and 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. Brown over med-high heat about 5 minutes, then add water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about an hour more, until lamb is tender.
To make sauce – Add cornstarch to cold water and stir well to form a slurry.
Place slurry, yogurt, egg, stock, and turmeric in blender. Blend well till smooth Put over med-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes.
Add stock and lamb and cook for 15 more minutes over low-medium heat, stirring often. Taste to adjust salt, if necessary.
Meanwhile, in a small frying pan, add garlic and oil (or ghee), adding a pinch each of turmeric, salt, and cumin. When oil is bubbly and garlic is golden, add to pot with lamb and sauce. Remove pot from heat.
Cook rice according to package directions, adding a teaspoon of turmeric.
In a large serving platter, layer the torn bread. Ladle enough sauce to the bread to just cover evenly. Allow bread to soak up the sauce and soften.
Layer the rice over the bread
Spread rice evenly
Remove lamb from pot and place on top of rice
Sprinkle parsley over lamb
Fry almonds in oil until golden brown
Sprinkle almonds on top.
Serve alongside sauce ladled into individual bowls.
