Some Middle Eastern Recipes
(vero;2024-Feb-04)
We have so far two recipes for mezze:
Baba Ganoush
Baba Ganoush is a Middle Eastern mezze dish (sometimes it's also called Moutabbal). It's a creamy dip, like Hummus, a sort of hors d'oeuvre, but it tastes completely different. Normally it is eaten with round, thin Arab bread, but we eat it with everything at hand:-)
The ingredients are enough for a medium-sized bowl, as an appetizer for about six persons.
- two nice big aubergines
- the juice of one lemon
- 100 gr tahini
- half a cup sesame seeds
- two or three cloves of garlic
- two spoons of olive oil
- one teaspoon of cumin (or two if you like the stuff)
- pepper and salt to taste
Cut the aubergines in halves and chargrill them until the skin begins to peel off (should take between 20 and 30 minutes). Let them cool and carefully peel them. Put the aubergines and all the other ingredients into a mixer (I have to do this in two portions as our mixer is not big enough). Blend everything into a smooth paste. (If the paste turns out to be too liquid, put some more sesame seeds and/or tahini into the mixer.)
In the Middle East this dip is put into a sort of flat soup plate, garnished with parsley and a few drops of olive oil, and served with pitta bread.
Hummus
Hummus is a Middle Eastern mezze dish, a creamy dip combining nicely the nutty taste of tahini with garlic and lemon.
The ingredients are enough for a medium-sized bowl, as an appetizer for about six persons.
- 250 gr chickpeas
- 2 or 3 cloves garlic
- juice of 2 lemons
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 150 gr tahini
- 100 gr yoghurt
- salt and pepper to taste
- Garnish for each plate:
- A shot of olive oil
- 1 to 2 pinches of Sumac
Soak the chickpeas one day before to soften them (or cook them if you have forgotten). First, puree the chickpeas in a blender and then add the garlic, the tahini and the lemon juice and blend everything into a smooth paste. Mix this paste with the yoghurt: you're nearly done. Add more lemon juice, garlic, cumin or salt to your taste. We personally tend to put much more garlic as stated, but we understand it's not to everybody's liking ;-)
In the Middle East this dip is put into a sort of flat soup plate, garnished with a generous shot of olive oil and sprinkled with a few pinches of sumac, and served with pitta bread.
$updated from: Blog.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:39 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$