Ashak – Leek-Filled Dumplings with Meat Sauce

Sorry for the long hiatus; I’ve been planning to post for awhile now, but haven’t gotten around to it. Anyways, here’s a nice Tajik recipe, because that’s all I have time to post for now. Keep in mind I don’t measure anything, so any measurements are approximate. You could probably also make this vegetarian with crumbled tofu or extra split peas.

Ashak – Leek-Filled Dumplings with Meat Sauce

60-70 round or square dumpling wrappers (I used dim sum wrappers) – you can make your own if you REALLY want to.

1 large leek
1 tsp salt
¼ – ½ tsp red pepper
1 tsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 – 2 medium onions, finely chopped
300 gram minced beef or lamb

½ cup yellow split peas, washed and soaked for a bit
½ – 1 cup tomato sauce
salt and black pepper

16 oz plain yogurt (room temperature)
2 medium cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tsp salt

dried mint, to serve

Chop the leek, and wash and drain in a colander, pressing out as much water as possible. Place the leeks in a mixing bowl, and add salt and red pepper, mixing well. Mix in the 1 tsp oil. Heat 3 tbsp vegetable oil in a pan and fry the onions, stirring occasionally, until they are golden brown. Add the meat and fry until browned. Drain the split peas and add them too, along with the tomato sauce and some hot water, just enough to cover the meat and beans. Bring to a boil and add salt and pepper to taste (don’t add too much salt as the sauce will thin out later and be more concentrated), lower the heat, cover, and simmer about half an hour, or until the peas are cooked. Remove the cover and allow to simmer until the sauce boils down to desired thickness, and adjust the seasonings. While the meat sauce is cooking, stuff the dumplings: lay out a few wrappers and place 1-1½ tsp of the leek mixture in the centers of each. With your finger, run some water along the edges of each wrapper and seal with a second wrapper, pressing edges together firmly. Set the dumplings aside as you finish them (try to work quickly so they don’t dry out). Bring a big pot of water to boil, add 1 tsp salt and a bit of vinegar, and boil the dumplings for 7-10 minutes. You may have to boil them in two batches. Gently push them back under the water with a spoon when they come up. Mix the yogurt, garlic, and salt. Swirl a bit of the yogurt mixture over the serving plate, or on individual plates. When the dumplings are done, remove them gently with a slotted spoon and try to let as much water run off as you can. Place on the serving plate, over the yogurt. Top with the meat sauce and more yogurt, and sprinkle liberally with the dried mint. Noosh-e jan!

Checking in with a recipe

Not too much news right now.  I’m waiting for my Czech visa and a solid work schedule.

I’m in a food mood today!  I don’t have many new recipes to share but I’ve never posted my sarma (Bosnian stuffed cabbage leaves) recipe here, so here it is!

Food Blogger Recipes Thus Far

I’ve found some really great recipes on food blogs.  Here are some I’ve tried and liked so far:

Two from Almost Turkish Recipes:  Bulgurlu Mercimek Corbasi (couldn’t figure out how to get the special characters in there, sorry) and Firinda Kabak Mucver.

From Eat Drink Live:   Cheese and Onion Pie.

And from Jumbo Empanadas:   Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies.

Looks like I have a lot more I need to try!  Especially:

G.O.O.P. 

Rose Jam Tartlettes with Cream Topping

Fish in Persian Sweet and Sour Sauce

Spicy Chicken Rice Flu Chaser Soup

Bittersweet Citrus Tart

Sahan Fatayer 

Ash-e Joe

This is a delicious, and very healthy, Iranian soup of beans, barley, rice, and herbs (ash means soup; joe means barley or grain). It takes awhile to cook, but mostly you just leave it on the stove.

Ingredients:

½ cup garbanzo beans

½ cup red kidney beans

½ cup lentils

½ cup barley

¼ cup rice

1.5 lb mixed herbs (spinach, parsley, cilantro, chives, dill)

2 cups plain yogurt (or kashk if you can find it)

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp dried mint

Soak all beans together overnight. Preferably, boil them for a couple minutes, leave them in that water overnight, and then discard the water before cooking. This will soften them up for cooking and should remove some of beans’ “antisocial side effects.” Soak the barley separately overnight. Cook beans with enough water to cover them for one hour over low heat. Skim off as much foam as you can. Add barley and rice, cook 30 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Chop the herbs and add them. Add more hot water if necessary, but the soup should not be too watery. Simmer 2-3 hours more, until all the beans are tender. Stir in yogurt (keeping a bit for garnish if you want), and season with salt, pepper, and mint.

Optional, and good if you want a nice presentation (this soup isn’t too attractive; it’s grey!): Transfer soup to serving dish and garnish with a bit of yogurt. Thinly slice 2-3 onions, fry them until golden, and color with 1 ts turmeric. If you include this step, add the 1 tbsp mint to the onions instead of directly into the soup. Garnish soup with these onions.

Speaking of Persian stuff, does anyone know where I can listen to recitations of Rumi’s poetry online in Farsi?  Or any other classical (such as Saadi) or modern Persian poet (such as Forough Farrokhzad), for that matter.  It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Persian poetry recited and I really miss it.  I know YouTube must have some stuff, but it takes awhile to load the videos here, so I’d rather find some clips somewhere with only audio.

Attention Americans Living in Amman…

…I got cornmeal at Safeway Shmeisani today!  It’s Aunt Jemima brand, and it’s with the baking supplies.  Of course, it’s priced way more than what we’d pay in the US, because they know that we suckers corn-loving Americans will buy it.  I’ve gotta have my polenta!  Now I just have to get some decent halal sausage to go in it that doesn’t taste like bologna!

Sexist Advertising, Lemon Curd, and Biscuits

So I opened up the hall cabinet and noticed that on the box the iron came in is a silhouette of a woman standing with her ankles crossed, one hand on her hip (a pretty provocative pose for a red silhouette), the other hand holding a pile of laundry, presumably freshly washed, ironed, and folded, and she’s wearing this mini Mini MINI skirt!  What’s up with that?  Anyways, it’s a French iron, so don’t blame the Jordanians.

I can’t find lemon curd here.  So I decided to make some.  I used this recipe.  It was really good!  The only problem is, it doesn’t go well with khubz taboun (the local flatbread everyone eats).   I would really love some buttermilk biscuits with it.  Does anyone have a good recipe?  Especially one that doesn’t require “cutting the butter into the flour until it resembles course crumbs?”  I’ve never really mastered that technique.  Which probably means I should just practice, but I’m feeling lazy.  I’d be willing to try it, though, if anyone has a recipe that is really, really good!

Onions and Plastic don’t mix

So if you cut up some onions and want to store them in the fridge for later, use a glass container, not a plastic one.  A plastic container will stink for ten more washes!  That’s all I have for today; obviously not much going on here!  Maybe some recipes and music reviews later this week.

Chef School

So why hasn’t MusicalChef been posting any new recipes?

Weeeellll, because I need to learn how to cook! Since moving to Jordan, I feel like I’m starting from scratch in that department. The tools are different, and the ingredients available are different. And I don’t know enough Arabic to ask the shopkeepers for some things I can’t find.  You saw the post about the oven I had in my previous apartment. I had to ask my neighbor how to light it. I had to ask the previous tenant how to light the one in the new apartment. This one seems easier and safer, though. Before I figured out how to use it, I tried to make a batch of brownies in the toaster oven and burned the whole batch! I had a good excuse for not keeping an eye on them – I was writing the last two paragraphs of my thesis! 🙂 

So I got something last week that LOOKED like cornmeal. Of course it wasn’t labeled. I tried to make polenta with it. Well, it wasn’t cornmeal. I still don’t know what it was but it tasted ok. And I went to the makhbaz (bread-seller), and they were making these pancakes outside. They smelled good, and I was hungry by then, so I thought, “Great! Pancakes for sahur!” So I stopped by and picked up some syrup (could only get 2% maple), and we had them the next morning. They were pretty good, but we were wondering why they were so sticky and chewy on one side. Then I found out you’re supposed to stuff something in the middle and fold them into a half moon, fry them, and soak them in syrup! They are called kata’if and are really delicious. So that’s why they’re sticky on one side.  I still like them as pancakes, too.

It seems many of the locals buy canned hummus and “dress it up” at home with garlic, lemon, and tahini. I’ve always made my own hummus with the beans, but I gave the can a try since I haven’t gotten a food processor yet.  One brand was horrible.  Another was pretty good.  I can’t believe I’m using canned hummus.

Broccoli’s hard to get here, and that’s my favorite. It’s available, but it’s expensive. I’m having a hard time getting spinach, too. Our local veggie vendor doesn’t have it, and we don’t make it to the big grocery stores too often. I need to learn to cook some new vegetables. The problem is I don’t like them. I’m a picky eater. It’s not something I’m proud of, and I’m trying to change that, and get used to new things, but that’s what I’m working with right now. I’ve never liked eggplants, which are popular here, although I don’t mind Baba Ghanoush in small quantities.  Not too crazy about bell peppers either, unlike Chairman Kaga.  I love potatoes but I know they’re not AS good for you as other veggies.  Tomatoes aren’t the main veggie in a dish.  Zucchini’s ok…fried.  Bad!  Oh, and in zucchini bread which I’m not going to attempt here anytime soon.  What else is there in the small greengrocers?  Since we’re not big meat eaters, vegetables are a must!  And I really have never liked beans.  I know I should like them since they’re so healthy, and I’m trying!  I’ll start with chana pulao (rice pilaf with chickpeas).  I sometimes make adas (lentil soup).

Good thing there’s always a 25 qirsh (about 35-40 cents) falafel sandwich waiting for me if I mess up!

Killer Ovens!

Does anyone besides me have a gas oven, the kind you have to throw a match inside to light?

Well I have one and I’m scared of it.  You have to turn on the gas, set the knob to the temperature you want, and throw a match into a tiny hole in the bottom rack.  And of course, if you don’t make it in the first time (or second, or third), more and more gas keeps building up, so the flame will be even bigger when you finally do make it in.

Here’s the MusicalChef way of lighting the thing:

• Open the big water bottles and keep them handy so I can throw them at the stove if I need to.
• Put all the valuables in one place so if I do burn the house down, I can grab everything at once and run out.  Especially the laptop and the flashdrive that has the backup copies of my Masters thesis.  Cause I’m not doing that again!
• Turn on the gas and set the knob.
• Light a match, grasp the end with a pair of tongs, and try to keep a safe distance as I attempt to drop the match in the little hole.
• Repeat above step cause I missed.
• May have to repeat it again.
• Hit the floor when it finally lights!

I think I’ll try to cut down…

Is “Diet” Cola a Better Choice?

Written by Dr. Rehan Zaidi

Millions of people today consume aspartame, the artificial sweetener known as “NutraSweet”. Despite aspartame’s approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and their equivalents in countries around the world, there is overwhelming evidence that aspartame is not a safe substance to consume. Unfortunately, the decision to allow the public to be subjected to the harms of aspartame has been influenced more by those who directly benefit from the sales of the substance rather than by government organizations whose responsibility it is to protect the public’s health and safety. As a product composed of natural ingredients, one would assume that it is likely safe, but that is not what “natural” necessarily means. As is often advertised, people are led to believe that aspartame can help control body-weight and even blood-sugars. However, aspartame’s shady history of approval and potentially toxic ingredients casts serious doubt on its safety, and makes it more a health threat that should be exposed and publicised. Following are brief summaries of the effects of aspartame on certain body functions as well as some of the scientific studies that have been overlooked during the substance’s peculiar approval. Cancer   In a two-year study conducted by the manufacturer of aspartame, twelve of 320 rats fed a normal diet and aspartame developed brain tumors while none of the control rats developed tumors. The startling fact was that five of the twelve tumors were in rats given a low dose of aspartame. Despite this and other research, aspartame was still approved. read more