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22/07/2022

Georgia’s giant dumpling born from conquest

Like many Georgian foods, khinkali are not originally from the country. But tracing where, exactly, their story began means confronting some powerful national myths.
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At the height of summer, Tbilisi is a heat trap. Ringed on three sides by an amphitheatre of mountains, the Georgian capital sits in a valley where stifling, humid air collects. Right up until evening, just traversing the city can be a life-sapping slog.

Walking the streets in June, it is surprising, then, to see families sit at lunchtime around restaurant tables piled high with swollen, boiled dumplings, named khinkali (the kh is pronounced as a throaty h). Each is almost the size of a tennis ball, and nearly bursting with meat, spices, herbs and all the juices that ooze from these uncooked innards as the dumping boils, which end up trapped inside the dough to make a puffy orb of broth.

19/07/2022

Pkhali: Georgia's versatile vegan appetiser

In the spirit of resourcefulness, everything from unused celery leaves to wilting parsley finds its way into pkhali, making it the perfect leftover dish.
"I express emotion through colour," chef Davit Narimanishvili said, as my fork hovered over a trio of perfectly spherical amber, green and purple appetisers, almost too exquisite to eat.

This is Georgian-born Narimanishvili's reworked version of his motherland's beloved vegetarian dish: pkhali (the "kh" is pronounced as a deep, guttural "h"). Held together with a seasoned walnut paste known as bazhe, the moulded balls are typically made with vegetables like aubergine and chard. But in the spirit of Georgians' resourcefulness, everything from unused celery leaves to wilting parsley finds its way into pkhali, making it the perfect leftover dish.

A culinary chameleon, pkhali can be slathered on toast as a vegan pâté, served mezze-style as a flavourful dip, or spooned – along with other cold appetisers – into a special bowl made for sharing known as a gobi. Above all, pkhali is a mainstay of the supra: a structured dinner party that celebrates Georgians' boundless hospitality and melting pot cuisine. The South Caucasian nation has endured its share of invasions, so it's no surprise to find Mongol, Mediterranean and Persian flavours infusing its dishes.

"There's no supra without pkhali," Narimanishvili told me from the kitchen of his chic riverside restaurant. Opened last August, Kevri (s8, Khashuri-Akhaltsikhe-Vale St) is a two-hour drive west from capital city Tbilisi, in the village of Tashiskari, better known for being the site of a 24-hour skirmish between the Georgians and the Turks in 1609.

Narimanishvili revealed how he draws out pkhali's earthy flavours by smoking pumpkin on an outdoor fire and baking beetroot in salt. Equal parts creamy, spicy and aromatic, the delicately textured balls are a taste explosion.

18/07/2022

Meet the chefs reinventing Palestinian cuisine

In the face of conflict, a crop of talented Palestinian chefs is reclaiming and reinventing their rich farm-to-table cuisine.

As I wound through the bustling market streets of Bethlehem’s Old City and entered the courtyard of the Hosh Al-Syrian Guesthouse, a calm oasis emerged. Set amid the pale Jerusalem stone and plant-lined terrace, Fawda Restaurant & Café is a reservations-only, upscale Palestinian food experience that merges local ingredients with French techniques. Owner and chef Fadi Kattan is determined to show tourists and West Bank residents that locally sourced Palestinian cuisine shouldn’t be solely defined by traditional dishes or casual presentation.

“It drives me crazy when the Palestinian kitchen is limited to street food like hummus and falafel,” Kattan said.

16/07/2022

Is the world ready for this Palestinian dish?

Due to qizha’s richly dark look and sharp taste, people either love it – or hate it. But once you get past the shock of the first bite, it’s ‘an addictive experience’ for many.

Palestinian cuisine is having a moment. There’s a wave of new cookbooks, such as Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories from the Palestinian Kitchen by Yasmin Khan and Joudie Kalla’s Baladi: A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea, documenting the diversity of flavours and techniques. Palestinian foodies on Instagram are going back to their roots, collecting lost and marginalised recipes, and holding pop-up dinners and food tours. And upscale restaurants are bringing a taste of the Palestinian plate to a wider clientele around the world, as detailed by Eater.
It looks like engine oil!
But food businessman Ala Tamam doesn't think the world is quite ready yet for his favourite Palestinian gem: qizha, also pronounced with a silent ‘q’ as izha, a richly bitter and pungent shiny black paste of roasted nigella seeds with just a hint of sweet creaminess that surprises all the senses.

Tamam, who is from the Palestinian city of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has been making tahini (or tahina as it’s called in Arabic) a sesame-seed paste, along with qizha in his family’s factory since childhood. Now he can’t live without it. He also knows that due to qizha’s richly dark look and sharp taste, people either love it – or hate it.

14/07/2022

Maamoul: A sweet celebration for Christians and Muslims

Maamoul is made at the end of both Lent and Ramadan, leading up to Easter and Eid al Fitr. But this year, the biscuit is extra sweet as both religions enjoy it at the same time.

This spring, along the ancient streets of the holy cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, a sweet smell wafts through the air. Inside, people's homes are hives of activity as extended family members and neighbours come together to make a biscuit-like treat that's very special to both Muslims and Christians.

"You can't have Easter without maamoul because it brings the happiness," said Rawan Ghattas, a Christian from Bethlehem, who works with famed local chef Fadi Kattan.

Like Ghattas, Rawan Bazbazat, a Muslim art teacher and jewellery maker from Jerusalem, has been baking the sweet since she was a child with her mother. "On Eid al Fitr, we always have to make maamoul. We can't celebrate this holiday without it," Bazbazat said.

Maamoul is made from a dough of semolina and ghee (though butter can be used as a substitute) and flavoured with mahlab (crushed cherry seeds, which are found inside the pits) and mastic (also known as Arabic Gum), which is the resin from the acacia tree.

While the delicate shortcrust-style sweet melts in your mouth, its design adds even more decadence. Before baking, the dough is either stuffed with pistachios drizzled with rosewater, walnuts mixed with sugar and cinnamon, or dates that have been ground to a paste with a little oil or butter. As Anissa Helou, author of Feast Food of the Islamic World described it to me, "The date maamoul is like having a cream-filled biscuit, but less fluffy."

06/06/2022

The mysterious ancient civilisation that resonates now
It's no surprise that the influence and impact of Ancient Greece resonates today. As defined by Britannica, the phrase refers to the northeastern Mediterranean region in the era between "the end of the Mycenaean civilisation (1200BC) and the death of Alexander the Great (323BC)", when it was one of the most important places in the world, according to National Geographic. The people of Hellas – as the lands of the Hellenes were called (the names Greece and Greek were conferred on them later by the Romans) were great thinkers, writers, warriors, actors, athletes, artists and politicians.

Roderick Beaton in his history book The Greeks, writes that the Greek civilisations were the "origin of much of the arts, science, politics and law as we know them throughout the developed world today".

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