This week’s journey started in the middle of the week when I took a trip to a Middle Eastern supermarket during my lunch break. MFC Supermarket (455 Gardeners Road, Rosebery in Sydney) is overflowing with spices, dates, olives, nuts, pastries and loads more. It’s like stepping into a food market in a foreign land – needless to say, I was in heaven.
Given I’m highly indecisive, I found it hard to settle on one dish this week so I chose three. It’s amazing what you can do when you have a full day off work and can spend it entirely in the kitchen.
You might recognise dish 1 as dukkah, but in my family we call it “doa”, which I think might have something to do with the Arabic pronunciation. However you say it though, this is seriously good stuff. I used my grandmother’s recipe, which unfortunately I can’t share with you - my mum pretty much has the family recipes under lock and key. I’ll tell you a funny story: a friend of mine got married a few years ago and for her hen’s we all baked a dessert and were to put the recipes in a scrapbook for her to keep. I decided to make my grandmother’s chocolate-covered, jam-filled biscuits. My mum informed me that her and my dad “had a discussion” and that she didn’t want me giving my friend the recipe. I was gobsmacked, especially since my parents have known this friend since she was born (our dads grew up together in Hungary). So that’s the reason you can’t have the doa recipe! Generally though, doa is a mix of seeds, and sometimes nuts, that are crushed together to form a fine powder. It can be sprinkled over dishes, used to coat meat before cooking, or the best way: used as a dip for bread – dip in olive oil first then in the doa. Amazing. I also love it with avocado on toast. You don’t have to miss out though – there are plenty of recipes online or you can just make up your own with whatever nuts and seeds you like. I’d never made my own batch of doa before and I was really happy with how it turned out. I made a huge amount, so it took me ages to grind it all up, but it was totally worth it.
Next up, the national dish of Egypt. Ful medames has been an Egyptian culinary custom for centuries. It’s often eaten at breakfast, but I’m more of a muesli-fruit-and-yoghurt type gal at breakfast, so I found it just as enjoyable as a side for barbecued lamb at dinner. “Ful” are fava beans or broad beans and while you can buy them dried and soak them overnight before making the dish, a cheat’s way is to buy them canned – it saves loads of time.
Lastly, Destination Degustation had a first this week: dessert. I tried my hand at making mochollobeya – pronounced “mo-hol-obey-a”. It’s a kind of custard pudding that uses ground rice cooked with milk and sugar. Rosewater, which the Egyptians love using in all kinds of desserts, is then stirred in at the end to give it a yummy, extra-sweet edge. I topped mine with chopped pistachios, too. The result? Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
A tip if you’re making the mochollobeya: cook it over medium heat for quite a while. The recipe says to cook until the mixture is like a thin custard, but I think it needs to be a little thicker. Bil hana wish shifa’! – Enjoy your meal!
All in all, Egypt was a success and not just because of the food. This week I had no meltdown in the kitchen, just a burn on my arm.
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