Sambosak

Sambosak is one of the most popular and scrumptious appetizers in all Arabic country, Pakistan, and India, especially during Ramadan, which is the fasting month for Muslims. Sambosak is very thin type of dough look like the Chinese eggroll’s dough but longer sheets and stuffed with cooked ground meat, fine diced onion, and fine chopped parsley, then shaped like triangles and deep fried. In Saudi Arabia they stuff the sambosak with date and with cheese and serve it as an appetizer with some yogurt drink. In Syria my home they stuff it with ground lamb meat, onion, and chopped walnut with cooked thick yogurt sauce that has big pieces of meat in it and they serve them together as the main course. In Pakistan and India, they stuff the triangles with cooked ground meat, onion and cooked potato cubes with peas; they add lots of seasoning like curry spices, they serve it as an appetizer with lentil soup.

I like to make my Sambosak with meat and some with good quality melting cheese like Brie and mozzarella cheese. This appetizer dish is good finger food for kids and adults in parties and events, it’s easy to make and tasty. My kids love Sambosak over chicken nuggets and any other processed finger food. 

Parisian Brioche

Brioche is a type of bread that is high in fat and eggs but very tasty and fancy looking bread. The high ratio of fat and eggs is what make this bread very delicious. Brioche is very soft and tasty bread, it’s good for breakfast time with some honey butter or cheese, my kids likes to eat alone. Brioche can be savory too especially if shaped like a regular loaf of bread then sliced and used as appetizer topped with smoke salmon and green olives slices. There are so many ways and shape to make the brioche, but my favorite one is brioche a tete. Brioche a tete is shaped as ball that put in fluted pan and topped with another ball of dough that is shaped a little bit smaller than the first one, then brush the shaped dough with egg wash and bake until dark brown. The final look for brioche is amazing and very appealing to the eyes, because is very shiny and glossy from the egg wash prior to baking. When I make brioche for my family the whole house smells wonderful just like areal bakery shop. Brioche bread is one of the thing that I learn in the baking and pastry class and I love it. 

Cheesecake What A Treat

Cheesecake is the first dessert my husband begged me to make after aw got married. Living in the United State of America I have to experience the amazing cheesy and creamy dessert, so I ate it in many restaurants and I fall in love. I decide I want to make the delightful dessert by my self and from scratch so I try many recipes and method but the results were not as I want them to be until a good friend of mine thought me and showed me how it is done. Now I can make and kind, and flavor, and any size that I like. It’s very easy to make cheesecake and to make your family happy enjoying the goodness of a yummy treat. My favorite one is vanilla cheesecake with chocolate ganache and maraschino cherry on top, I make it like little tart for all my family to grab and go. Making the cheesecake in small portion will be easy to serve and will look elegant on the plat. The cheesecake factory restaurant famous with over 40 flavors of cheesecake that I and my family had try some of it, but my kids love mine more and they ask me to make more and more.  

Tasty And Healthy Olive Oil

I grow up with my family who owned many orchids of olive trees; it was very fun going with them to harvest olive. Olive oil is one of the most important ingredients in my mother cooking and flavoring her dishes by drizzling some olive oil over it especially when making Hummus. Olive oil very popular and the meddle eastern dishes, because it has unique flavor and healthy. The fat from olive oil is called monounsaturated fat and it good for the body unlike butter and other fat sources.

There are unlimited ways to use olive oil in the cooking or flavoring, I like it over the hummus and with all salad dressing. One of the delicious ways to enjoy the taste of olive oil is by making this simple sandwich that my kids adore. The sandwich is called Arosa, and it’s made by putting some sliced tomato, dry mint, olive oil, and salt together in the bread to create the very simple yet very yummy sandwich. I love olive oil and I use it in most of my dishes especially the extra virgin one because it is very rich in flavor, color, and remind me of my sweet home Syria.  

    

Mahshie (stuffed vegetable)

Vegetables play a huge part in Middle Eastern diet, because vegetables are available, affordable, healthy, and full of vitamins and nutritious. In the Middle East countries they take vegetable to the next level. So instead of boiling the vegetables, grilling them, or sauté them to be served as a side dish. In the Middle East the vegetable will be served as the main course or dish. That will happen when they take any type vegetable and incorporate with some rice and meat. Like this dish called Mahshie. Mahshie is mixture of a whole vegetable that is cored from the inside of it and stuffed with a mixture of rice, ground meat, tomato paste, herbs and spices. The main vegetables that are being used for this dish are Mexican squash, Japanese eggplant, sweet peppers, cabbage leaves and grape leaves. Mahshie is very filling and large in amount dish, that’s why sometimes, requires more than one-person to work on it. Mahshie is popular meal In the Middle East because it is a very healthy and well balanced. Mahshie has a higher amount of vitamins from the vegetables and equal amount of protein and starch from the rice and the meat. Mahshie is one of my favorite dishes it could be very hard to make and prepare but it is worth the efforts.

The Love For Pita Bread

Pita bread or Arabic bread as it called in the Middle East; it is one of the most important parts of every meal on a daily basis. If the house doesn’t have much food, it must have pita bread in it. It is the main foods in most Arabic countries; do to its nutritious value and fresh taste. The people buy it from fresh bakeries, or make it at home daily. It is very easy to make, its ingredients are available in most household’s kitchen. Pita bread ingredients are flour, yeast, salt, and water that all what it needs to make the most delicious bread ever. Pita bread you can eat it with all savory food like hummus and kebabs, and you can cut it in half and make pocket to stuff it with you favorite stuffing. Pita makes perfect lunch sandwich and great snack with some kind of dip. The secret behind forming the puffiness and form the pocket is the high heated oven of 500°F or even hotter if possible. The high temperature will cook it evenly and make the pocket, which made pita very unique and famous. I grow up eating pita every single day and I have try so many kind of bread but my favorite one is always the pita. 

       

My Cooking Done Different

Growing up eating all kinds of Arabic and medatarian food, which are very rich in flavors and spices and learning most of secret and techniques of Arabic cooking. My background helps in so many ways in my studying at The Art Institute of Tucson. I like  learning the classic fundamentals techniques of the French cooking. Being in the school help me to be more advance and help me to be more professional. So now I can easily create an Arabic meal that is very delicious and rich in Arabic culture following the French cooking methods and knowledge. My final product is elegant, successful, and organized with depth in the flavor from my hometown and new French twist to it. One important element I learned in school and I like to implement it in my cooking and presenting food is portion control. So instead plaiting a big tray of rice and meat I would rather assemble individual plates. Each on has small portion of rice and nice-cut piece of meat. That would make a plate more appealing to the eye, and good serving size so that we can minimize waste. I love the organization and the stages and procedures of the French way of cooking and plating, Its looks pure, simple, and elegant.