Classic Lebanese Cuisine 170 Fresh and Healthy
Mediterranean Favorites 1st Edition
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Classic Lebanese Cuisine
Classic Lebanese Cuisine
170 Fresh and Healthy Mediterranean Favorites
Chef Kamal Al-Faqih
GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT
HELENA, MONTANA
AN IMPRINT OF THE GLOBE PEQUOT PRESS
To my mother Hind and my aunt Effat
Thank you for your patience and guidance
Copyright © 2009 by Kamal Al-Faqih
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission should be addressed to The Globe Pequot Press,
Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT
06437.
ThreeForks is an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.
ThreeForks is a registered trademark of Morris Book Publishing, LLC.
Text designed by Sheryl P. Kober
Layout by Nancy Freeborn
Photo credits: pp. vi, x, xii, xvii, xviii, 216, 223, 226 © Shutterstock. All
others courtesy of Kamal Al-Faqih and Andreas Frank.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Al-Faqih, Kamal.
Classic Lebanese cuisine : 170 fresh and healthy Mediterranean favorites /
Kamal Al-Faqih.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7627-5278-2
1. Cookery, Lebanese. I. Title.
TX725.L4A42 2009
641.595692—dc22
2009013815
Printed in China
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by Nora Boustany
Acknowledgments
Introduction
How to Use This Book
Helpful Techniques
Before the Guests Arrive
Appetizers (Mezza)
Salads (Salata)
Main Dishes (Chicken/Lamb/Beef/Fish/Vegetarian)
Side Dishes (Vegetarian/Chicken/Lamb/Beef)
Desserts (Hillou)
Suggested Menus
The Pantry
Metric Conversion Tables
About the Author
Foreword
BY NORA BOUSTANY
C limbing up my grandmother’s pine trees shading a carpet of rust
needles was only half the fun. The cones we coaxed to drop to the
ground did not stay there for long, at least not in the village where I spent
my summer holidays, Dibbiyeh in the Chouf Mountains of Lebanon. The
cones were burned to extricate the hard, brown shells encasing the nut and
were then crushed with the nearest pebble or stone. Washed and dried, the
peculiar buttery treats were then tossed into a hissing frying pan to adorn
the typical meat and onion fillings of a whole array of Lebanese dishes.
Golden and glistening, these pine nuts topped my mother’s upside-down
cake mold filled with chicken and rice, like jewels on a crown. The lemon
sauce on the side added flavor to the mouthfuls of moist chicken and
crunchy treats.
Sunday lunches around my Grandmother Rose’s dining room table, with
everyone fussing over the latest details, were a special family bonding
ritual. My uncles and father cracked jokes, their wives laughed or hummed
disapproval, and we squealed with joy. The showstoppers were the Sunday
menus, with mloukhiyeh, a leafy green stew over rice, toasted Arabic bread,
and chicken topped with a vinegar-and-onion salsa; sayadiyeh, an exquisite
mix of fish over rice with caramelized onions and cumin topped with
roasted almonds; and of course the legendary kibbi bi sayniyeh, a pie of
cracked wheat and lamb, stuffed with a rich lamb filling.
Therese, our nanny, housekeeper, and friendly kitchen mole, would
wrap her head in a white cotton scarf and start pounding the slab of lean
lamb with her large and heavy wooden pestle, striking it into a large stone
urn, the jurn, early that morning.
Unrelenting thuds to beat the meat into creamy submission alternated
with church bells and the muzzin’s call to prayer from a neighboring town.
We woke up to that telltale rhapsody promising a scrumptious oven dish in
its early stages, a process now easily replaced with the efficient buzz of a
meat grinder. Soaked cracked wheat would get folded into the jurn with
white onions, spices, a sprig of wild thyme or basil, a dash of salt and
cinnamon, and a couple of cubes of ice to keep the meat fresh.
While my mother sautéed the minced lamb with onions, pine nuts, and
pomegranate paste for the filling, my twin sister and I would hide behind
the drying laundry clutching wet sheets for cover to get our stolen mouthful
of fresh raw kibbi before it was all kneaded and flattened into a great, round
pan and etched with a sharp knife into a mosaic of diamond shapes.
Shameless little beggars that we were, we would tiptoe around to enter
the main kitchen door on the lookout for leftover morsels, this time
brazenly and in broad daylight, before they too were balled and stuffed for
frying or freezing. The aromas wafting out of the kitchen those blessed
Sundays were meant for the gods. The accompanying salad of finely
shaven, hair-thin cabbage and boiled beets slathered in a garlicky
vinaigrette and sprinkled with dried and crushed mint leaves from the
garden was another step up to heaven. The homemade yogurt, fermented in
a clay pot and wrapped in an old towel overnight, was a must.
As war ravaged Lebanon and parts of the Middle East, I would hark
back to those tastes and smells savored in acres of carefree time with a hole
in my heart for those shared pleasures and that sublime way of life.
A Lebanese family table is a spiritual exercise of togetherness and
cultural, culinary communion. The piles of rolled-up leaves picked from our
own vine trees in Dibbiyeh were another woman-made miracle. As a
graduate student later in Columbia, Missouri, I sought to replicate my
mother’s delicacies for a graduation dinner I had organized for classmates. I
called Beirut, panic-stricken, when the vine leaves started opening up:
“What shall I do, what shall I do? The guests are coming in 45 minutes!” I
yelled over the phone. My mother laughed, reminding me of the age-old
trick of weighting the contents of the pot with a heavy plate plunged into
the water to keep the little green cigars from unraveling.
I became bolder and more daring as I finally set up house alone as a
foreign correspondent. Traveling through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Morocco,
Algeria, and Libya, I was constantly reminded while strolling through their
souks of the riches of scents, flavors, spices, and condiments the region had
to offer. I grew to appreciate the strong element of organic, tasty vegetables
that shaped the Lebanese, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern diet. The dark
purple basil grown in Iran enhanced the blissful marriage of fresh feta and
warm, Persian bread with its earthy perfume.
Once I settled in Washington, D. C., no dinner party I gave was
complete without Kamal’s personal and professional contributions as a
friend and caterer. He shared some tricks and helped me heal the
deprivations of exile, as I treated my guests to nostalgic flights into the
magical evenings at home I wished had never been interrupted. Kamal’s
perfected and time-tested techniques steeped in the authenticity and ethos of
the dishes he grew up with make that unique culinary voyage possible
anywhere.
Our ingredients of fresh olive oil, dried thyme, sesame paste (tahini),
and sumak are now gourmet staples and can be found on shelves of
delicatessen stores and mainstream supermarkets all over America.
Hummus is part of the South Beach Diet! My beloved worlds have come
together.
The refreshing tart sweetness of pomegranates, both raw and processed,
which has laced dishes from Morocco to Beirut and from Baghdad to
Kabul, is the hottest new antioxidant. It is as though my grandmother’s
backyard of heavy, golden yellow lemons, ruby pomegranate fruit, pearl-
blossomed almond trees, and emerald patches of basil, mint, and parsley
has gone global.
Let me invite you to that garden and to Kamal’s chest of Mediterranean
treasures of the palate, lovingly and artfully presented in this gem of a book.
Acknowledgments
A mosaic of people, events, and circumstances have conspired over the
years to end up in the compilation of this book. It all began with
experiences and memories from my childhood, when our family would
spend summers in Lebanon.
I would stand in the kitchen, watching my grandmother, aunts, and a ton
of cousins preparing what always seemed to be a feast. The aroma of fresh
parsley as someone’s hands flew over a chopping board to make tabbouli,
the sizzle of a kibbi ball splashing into hot oil—these were my early
connections to a cuisine and culture I came of age with. The diversity and
healthy, earthy ingredients of the Lebanese table always fascinated me. It
has endured over the ages and traveled across borders to all kinds of
palates.
To me, a day at home in the kitchen with my mother was a special event
all by itself. I would happily turn the handle of our manual meat grinder
screwed to the side of the countertop as meat, onions, and cracked wheat
would pass through to produce that softened texture for kibbi. As she mixed
and molded, then stuffed the hollowed cavities with minced meat and pine
nuts, I would be crushing freshly roasted coffee beans with a handheld mill
into a fine powder, giving off the scent that I forever associate with
steaming Turkish coffee.
When I started a catering company with my family in Washington, D.C.,
my skills grew and I perfected our recipes and Lebanese-style tapas or
mezza, pastries, and dishes to suit all kinds of occasions. Embassy
receptions, holiday parties, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduation
celebrations, museum openings, and official government events
commanded our specialties in a myriad of variations. I was inspired by and
adapted to certain occasions, alternating the range of ingredients, thus
amassing a body of techniques and innovations of old traditions that are the
foundation of this book of recipes.
