ChefCrash

Laban Immo W'Ruz Delicious, tangy Lebanese peasant dish. 1 lb lamb cubed 2 (150g) onions, large dice water salt 1 qt yogurt 1 cup water 1 egg beaten 1 T corn starch salt pepper Brown the meat in some butter, stir in the onions and cook until tender but not brown. Add just enough water to cover the meat,season with a little salt, bring to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer until the meat is tender (about 1 hour). 15 minutes before the meat is done, mix the yogurt, cornstarch, egg and water in separate pot. Heat on medium high while constantly stirring in the same direction* until the mixture just starts to bubble. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting and season to taste with salt and pepper. Drain the cooked meat and onions and add them to the yogurt. Correct the seasoning and simmer until you have "gravy" consistency. Serve on rice with Pita bread and fresh radishes and green peppers. *To prevent the yogurt from separating or curdling.

That is so cool. Do you wait for the butter to melt before using the stirrer bar?

The dough is the same for all. 9 oz water (110*F) 1 T Olive oil 1.5 tsp sugar 1.5 tsp table salt 1 tsp instant yeast 16 oz Gold Medal AP flour In the Kitchen Aid bowl, place the first 5 ingredients, mix (using the paddle attachment) for a few seconds. Stop the machine and add 75% (12 oz) of the flour. Start the machine on the first speed then to the second speed and leave it to kneed for 5 minutes. Stop the machine, switch to the dough hook. At this point the dough is very wet. Start the machine on the first speed and add the remainder of the dough a little at a time until the dough comes off the walls of the bowl and forms a ball. Should be soft but not sticky. I like to divide in half, form into two balls, roll them in more oil, cover and set aside to rise. For the lahm b'ajeen and the spinach pies, you need 3.5" to 4" rounds. You could form them by hand but it's easier to roll out the dough balls to a thickness of 1/8 to 3/16" and use a cookie cutter (mason jar ring etc.). Lahm b'ajeen topping 3/4 lb lean hamburger 1/2 lb ground Lamb (if you can't find lamb use ground pork) 8 oz onions chopped extra fine 2 tomatoes diced 2 T tomato paste 1/4 bunch parsley chpped 2 tsp table salt 2 tsp Lebanese 7 spice 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp black pepper I use the beef/lamb combo because the ground lamb around here is too fatty. If your tomatoes are too ripe, place them in a strainer and gently push some of the juice out, or simply squeeze them with your hands over the sink (after you chop them ). Mix everything together. For the mini hors d'oeuvre pictured above, the dough rounds have to be shaped before they're filled. Grab a dough round at opposite ends and pinch (refer to the photos), rotate 90* and do the same. Lift the sides upward to form a square box. Fill with a T of filling and place on parchment lined pan. Bake in very hot oven 500- 550*F, 5-7 minute. Spinach pie filling. 1 lb bag baby spinach 1 small diced onion salt Sumac black pepper Olive oil Toasted pine nuts (optional) I know the list of ingredients is vague, you'll see why. Wash, and roughly chop the spinach. Place the spinach in a strainer, sprinkle with salt and Sumac and place the strainer in the sink. This step is to wilt the spinach and remove some of its liquid. Dice the onions and sprinkle with salt as they sit on the cutting board. Mix and let them sit. Go back to the spinach, grab hand fulls and rub them between your hands to work the salt and sumac in to them. Eventually they'll wilt and look like they're cooked. At this point grab hand fulls and squeeze all the liquid out of then and place in a bowl. Grab the onions, squeeze their juice over the sink and place them in the same bowl with the spinach and mix. Now you need to taste and correct the seasoning. If the mixture doesn't taste good now, it won't after baking. Use salt, Sumac and pepper. It needs to be salty and sour (from the sumac). Depending on the size of your dough rounds, place an appropriate amount of filling, then pick 3 equidistant points on the circumference of the round. Grab two, pull them up and pinch together as you bring the third to the same point. Pinch together the resultant seams (refer to photos above). Bake at~475*F till golden brown. Zaatar pies These are the easiest. Zaatar (Thyme, Sumac, sesame seeds, salt) Olive oil The rounds can be any size (2.5-3" is good) Those of you who've been mixing the zaatar and oil then applying to the dough, only to end up with some that are too dry and others swimming in oil will find the following trick to be the rats ass. Fill a small spray bottle with olive oil. While the dough rounds sit on your counter top, spray them with as much, or as little oil as you like, then sprinkle them with a premeasured amount of dry zaatar (say 1/4 or 1/2 tsp). You'll end up with uniform mini manaeesh. Scoobado97, I'd like to know how you make your Lahm b'aajin filling.

I season steaks with oregano and black pepper, for an hour while the steaks reach room temperature. Not to permeate the meat, but it's one less thing to do while my pan is on the fire. I add salt just before the steaks hit the pan. If I'm not allowed to speculate, I got nothing more to say.

Arak (Raki,Ouzo), is a must. If you're ambitious you can try the following. All are finger foods that can be served at room temperature. One way to have Lamb. Mini Lahm b'ajeen. Lamb, tomatoes, onions and Lebanese spices. Also made with Lamb. Kibbi kabobs. Grape leaves. Spinach pies. Falafel balls and the trimmings. Will go great with mini Pitas.(Click here). Mini Zaatar pies. Hummus. Baba Ghannouj. For a salad Fattoosh is great, not to mention, less work than Tabbouleh. Khiar b'Laban salata. Yogurt and cucumbers with garlic, salt and mint. This one is made with Lebanese cucumbers and goes real well with the first 3 dishes above. Avoid Greek yogurt, it lacks the tang (tartness) essential for this dish. For dessert, Tamer (date filled pastry).(Click here) Baklava (click here). To sober everyone, Turkish coffee. The same if not better than espresso and can be made in large quantities, fast. If you need recipes let me know.

Molson Brewing CO. reduced their canned beer to 11.5 fl.oz. When you buy a 24pk case, you're only getting 23.

Beautiful photos gfron1. This thread brings back memories. As kids we spent summers in the village where my parents grew up. We always had a goat (or lamb) that we'd fatten over the summer. We knew that the animal will end up on the dinner table, to celebrate the end of the Olive harvest (late August early September). Our job was to collect lots and lots of Mulberry branches from trees all over our land. Goats aren't finicky eaters, but they love Mulberry leaves. It was always a little sad. My sisters and brothers and I (ages 7-14) always made sure our pet for the summer had a good meal and all the water it wanted before we took it for its last walk. To the village butcher. We got the goats at the goat drive-thru. We drive through The dude pulls up to our window. We place our order and pop the trunk of the Mercedes And we're off O.K. just kidding about the drive-thru. I took those photos in 2004 visiting Lebanon for the first time in 30 years. The man's name is Sabaa. We played together when we were children. We used to buy the goats from his father. This is your chance to try foods that you otherwise can't. Like very, very fresh liver or meat like this: Lung sheesh kabobs. Testicles sliced and sauteed in butter and finished with lemon juice. Tripe and feet like this. Don't make sausage.

Morton's Tender Quick (sodium nitrate). Find it in the spice, or canning isle at Meijer's or Kroger's.

The last photo is killer David. Nice job.

We had to remove the pan from the oven several times to turn and salvage potatoes which were cooking too fast. That took some time since the rack had to be removed off the pan. Next time I'd cook the potatoes in a separate pan.

What ever it's called it makes for delicious chicken. I think cooking chicken this way offers a couple of advantages over roasting whole, rotisserie or cut pieces of chicken. 1. You get browning on the inside of the bird as well as the outside. 2. You get more of the crispy skin. While this can be done on a rotisserie bird, it's hard to do with a whole roasted bird, and on cut pieces the skin either falls off or shrinks too much. I spatchcocked this chicken This one was frogged. I think spatchcoking is more attractive than frogging. The later looks like conjoined chickens. The back bone is not removed (that's a crime oround here). I placed the bird skin side down in an inch of white vinegar. I seasoned the exposed side with liberal amounts of salt, garlic powder and cumin. A little rosemary and I started to add oregano and quickly stopped, so there was a dash of that. Turned the chicken skin side up and seasoned as before. The chicken marinated for about 2 hours. It went into a preheated 450* convection oven for 1.5 hours. Half way through I flipped the chicken skin side down. This chicken was so good I'm making it again tomorrow.

Probably because there is nothing really special about Ghee. It came about as a result of people wanting to preserve what little butter they could churn. There is nothing you could do with Ghee that couldn't be done better with fresh clarified butter. My wife who had used nothing but ghee until she came to the states four years ago, has bought three different brands of ghee which were later chucked. All smelled unappetizing. Now she prefers butter in savory foods as well as sweets.

Last Sunday I bought a 6 lb eye of round roast. Cut it in half and roasted one half as we usually do. Season, place in a 325*F convection oven and remove at internal temperature of 130*. Internal temp going in the oven was 44*. It reached target temperature in 1 hour 15 minutes (75 minutes). It came out great as usual. This is what it looked like. I wrapped the other (raw) half of the roast with plastic wrap, inserted the thermometer probe in it and placed it in the freezer. Today, three days later, it was frozen hard. I took it out and seasoned it as I did the first. Rubbed it with a mixture of crushed garlic and olive oil and seasoned it with Thyme, Rosemary and lots of kosher salt. I plugged the probe into the thermometer and hmmm... nothing. The stupid thing doesn't register below 32*F. Well, I know my freezer temp is -6* so I can assume the internal temperature is also that. This thing was rock hard. It sat out only long enough to be unwrapped and seasoned. Oven set to 325* and preheated, the roc.. er..roast went in at 12:35pm. I really wanted to monitor the temperature climb rate but all it read was "Lo". My wife and I had nothing to do. We're buried in snow and it's terribly cold out. She made Arabic coffee. I sat across from her at the kitchen table, sipping coffee trying not to make eye contact with her. I didn't know how to explain why, what, I was doing. My wife just doesn't understand us (you and me) ok? One of her automated responses "Why don't you throw it in the trash now and save some electricity?" Half an hour later the display still read "Lo" and the wife was getting restless. I set the target temp. on the thermometer to 32* and followed her upstairs. Did I mention it was real cold? Sure enough, just as things started to heat up in the bedroom, so did things in the kitchen, the alarm went off. OK, I know what you're thinking, but the clock in the bedroom is not synchronized with that of the stove's. The core temperature reached 32* at 1:41pm (66 minutes). I programed the next set point to 60* this time. For sure that'll give me half an hour right? Wrong! The alarm went off after only 20 minutes, at 2:01. From here on the temperature rose at the rate of 10* every ~5 minutes. Final core temperature reached 130* after a total cooking time of 122 minutes (2 hours) at 2:37pm. The roast looked the same as the one above. The temperature topped off at 147* at 2:50pm. Came back from grocery shopping at 6pm and started to slice the roast. As you can see the roast is still red in the center. Very juicy with no juice running on the board. Tomorrow at work, we'll be having roast beef sandwiches on pumpernickel with horseradish and watercress. This is a chart of Temp vs. Cooking Time. No data was recorded between t=66 and t=85. There is however a video recording of nothing lasting exactly 19 minutes. Did I mention I'm fast? Next time Eye-O-Round is on sale I'll be stocking up and freezing individual 3 lb portions.

My friend brought me three of these. They are of, perhaps 10 month old Sheep (assuming sheep give birth in the Spring ). They're much bigger than those of the ..er.. Kids' up thread. They're 12" in length and weigh 8 lbs each. I've never skinned one of these. It made sense to start at an opening. Still with me? At the ears I just cut through. The outer ears remained attached to the skin. All done. Total skin removed weighed 2 lbs. After simmering in salted water and then roasting (for color). The carnage. Are you on a diet yet? Head. Deconstructed? Anyone fo a head doctor?

Maybe so, but I prefer JAZ's reality. Nice piece Janet.

Very cool Pam I'll try a frozen eye of round on Sunday and report back.

Yes.

Pam It's not a general term for pudding. It's the name of a specific dessert. M'hallabiyeh has become pseudo Kashta. People use it as a substitution when Kashta can't be found. Kashta is made by skimming the layer of clotted cream that forms on the surface of simmering milk. Milk is warmed in very wide and shallow pans (so as to have a large surface area) and the surface is skimmed as each, new layer of (can't think of the word) forms. I found that Ricotta cheese works in place of Kashta in recipes like Katayef or Znood El Sitt.

M'hallabiyeh can be thickened with cornstarch, ground rice or both. Usually flavored with Rose, or Blossom water and topped with nuts (pistachios, almonds) or dried fruit. While warm, it's poured into individual serving bowls and chilled. This pudding can be used to make Aish Al Saraya as well.

I love the transparent oven thermometer.. Most of their other tools appear 'cartoon-ish'?

Welcome Chancery Ya ya you're cool here. Are you saying you corned the beef in the "marinator" and then cooked it sous vide? Or are you using beef already corned (if so, why more salt)?, and what cut of beef are you using? Other than color, what does beet powder bring to er.. the party?

@325*F, I'd give them 45 minutes.

I'd try places that sell camping equipment.

Grains of Paradise? Thank you! ← Are you aka "Eagle Eyes"? It looks like "germs of Parmesan".

Do'h What kinda clues are those? Quinoa, Starbucks french roast?! ETA: It could have been you. Anna is a beautiful name.