rice
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.
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.
Chicken Maqlouba with Cauliflower
“Heat oil in pot; brown chicken (or beef or lamb), onions, garlic, and spices. Add water to cover and boil…” This is the start of many, many Mediterranean dishes. Once you have the cooked chicken and the richly flavored broth, you can go on create some really good meals, whether soups, stews, or grain-based dishes. I’ve added the tag “start with boiled chicken” to this recipe and will continue to use it for all such dishes.
Maqlouba is no exception, in this case we start with chicken. Maqlouba is a traditional Palestinian dish, whose name literally means “upside down”. It is a layered dish of meat, rice, and vegetables. Maqlouba usually features either cauliflower or eggplant as the main vegetable, to which you can add potatoes, carrots, chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers. When it is cooked, it is then flipped onto a serving platter. This particular maqlouba has chicken, cauliflower, potatoes, and carrots.
Traditionally, the vegetables are deep fried. I prefer to roast them, in order to cut down on the oil used.
A note about the chicken: the most common way to make maqlouba is to layer the chicken at the very bottom of the pot, then add the vegetables, then the rice. I personally prefer to remove the chicken to a baking sheet, drizzle or mist some oil on it, and broil. If you want to try it cooked in the rice, you start the layering with chicken, then vegetables, then rice.
The below recipe made enough for 2 adults and 2 kids, plus enough leftovers to have another complete meal.
Chicken Maqlouba with Cauliflower
4-6 lb chicken pieces
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp turmeric
1 bay leaf
3 cardamom pod
2 small potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced
1 cauliflower, separated into florets
2 small carrots, peeled, halved crosswise, each half thickly sliced lengthwise
1 T cooking oil
1 T extra virgin oil
salt and freshly cracked pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
2 cups jasmine rice
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
salt
Olive oil for drizzling over chicken (1-2 Tablespoons)
juice of half a lemon
1 teaspoon sumac
400 degrees 20-30 minutes. In a large bowl, place potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, oil, salt, pepper, and cumin. Make sure all the vegetables have a coating of oil and spice. Place in baking tray and roast 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Season chicken with onion, garlic, allspice, turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper to taste, and cooking oil. Allow to marinate an hour if desired. Heat pot over medium-high heat. Add seasoned chicken including oil and all the seasoning ingredients, bay leaf, and cardamom. Stir over medium-high heat about 10 minutes. Add water to cover chicken and bring to a boil over high heat. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface. When it comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes, until chicken is completely cooked.
Meanwhile, rinse rice with cold water until water runs clear. Cover with cold water, and allow to soak for 20 minutes.
One chicken is cooked, remove it to a baking tray. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the chicken, drizzle with some olive oil, and sprinkle with sumac.
After chicken and the vegetables are both ready, you can start the layering.
Start with a layer of cauliflower
Follow with potatoes and carrots.
Cover with rice, adding salt, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, and 1 teaspoon turmeric.
Add hot chicken broth to cover rice, plus about half an inch. Don’t worry if one or two of the veggies escapes and peeks out of the top.
Bring to a boil over high heat. Once it starts to boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes, or till all the liquid is absorbed. (Broil chicken during the last 5 minutes that rice cooks)
Serve with finely chopped salad and/or yogurt.
Vegetarian variation: Prepare vegetables and rice for layering as in the original recipe. Instead of the chicken and the resulting broth, heat oil and cook onions, garlic, and spices. Add vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Layer as in the recipe above, starting with vegetables, then rice. Add enough stock to cover rice, plus half an inch. Cook for 15-20 minutes until all stock has been absorbed. Flip onto a serving platter.
Cheesy Baked Zucchini, Mushroom, Spinach and Rice
This dish falls under the heading of “semi-homemade”. While I consider it very important to have a wide variety of from-scratch meals, it is also necessary to have a repertoire of dishes that are easy to put together for a busy weeknight. The “semi” part comes in the form of a spiced rice packet, and jarred marinara sauce.
It is inspired by Eat. Drink.Smile . Eggplant, Mozzarella and Saffron Rice Bake.
I have made her recipe many times, and it is fantastic. I wanted to make it again, but the eggplant at the supermarket was not looking great, so I modified the recipe to use up some of the veggies I do have.
Baked Zucchini, Mushroom, Spinach and Rice
Vigo yellow rice, 5 oz package (low salt)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 zucchini, halved and sliced
5 oz sliced mushrooms
handful of baby spinach
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
3 cups jarred marinara sauce
1 cup shredded cheese (I only put cheese on half the tray, double it for the whole tray)
Make rice according to package instructions.
Heat up olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat, and add zucchini and mushrooms. Saute a few minutes until mushrooms soften and zucchini gets light golden. Add half a teaspoon of Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic and spinach, saute a couple more minutes, until spinach wilts.
Pour about a cup of marinara in the bottom of a 2 quart casserole dish. Layer rice on top. Add another cup of marinara, then spread the veggies on top, finishing with another cup of marinara sauce.
Sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Cover and bake 15 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes more, till cheese is golden.
