The Cuisine of Yemen

Back to the Middle East this week with the food from Yemen, which Eliza pulled from the container of countries. If you could compare the food of Yemen to other countries I think you would pick Turkey (for it's grilled meats) and India (they use very similar spices in their foods).

This week Dave had to go on a mission to find me some Fenugreek seeds as they weren't in the regular supermarket (these will also come in handy next week for Indian week). I also made my own Hawaij spice mix (a mix of spices including cardamom, saffron, pepper, caraway and tumeric). Tomatoes, onions and potatoes were the featured vegetables this week, and we certainly ate a bit of bread, including Khobz Al Tawa, which I made myself. Lentils and Coriander also feature quite regularly in Yemeni Cuisine.

So here is the round up for the week:

Monday

Tomato and Coriander Salad (Banadura Salat A Bil Kizbara)
Spiced Grilled Meat  (Shawayuh)
Fried Potatoes 
Greens

The recipes for the salad and meat were from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook by Tess Mallos.

For the grilled meat I used some beef fillet steak which had the Hawaij spice mix sprinkled over it - you leave it for about 1/2 an hour before cooking. I also par-boiled the potatoes, and then fried them in the meat pan (after I cooked the meat), using a bit of the Hawaij spice mix. The tomato and coriander salad - is exactly that, with some lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil used to dress it.

Tuesday

Qlaba

Qlaba is a dish which usually uses some sort of meat such as beef, lamb or chicken - I chose to use chicken, with vegetables. The recipe I found online, used beans and potatoes. The recipe can be found here. I served it with Yemeni White Rice - basically basmati rice cooked with cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorns. I also made a rather simple Rose Water Lemon Drink, Eliza thought it tasted of Turkish Delight, as it had the Rose Water in it.

Wednesday

Stewed Beef Shank (Hor'ee)

Swimming night, so a slow cooked recipe was in order. Tonight it was Hor'ee, and I got the recipe from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook) and although the recipe called for Shank I used stewing beef. The meat was slow cooked all day in a mixture of Hawaij spices, onions and tomatoes. I also made my own Khobz Al Tawa, a bread found in Yemen - there was much kneading, rolling, folding and more rolling! The recipe was from the Queen of Sheba blog.

Thursday

Flat breads with Thick Lentil Soup (Shourba Bilsen)

The recipe for the soup was once again from the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook, and although I enjoyed it, I don't think this made it to the family's favourite soup list LOL! It looked a bit brown.... I was also feeling a little lazy that night, so instead of making flat breads (Lahuh) I decided to buy them!

We went off the coast, to spend a weekend with our friends fishing on Friday - so that was it for Yemeni food week!

I will be back at the end of this week, with a round up of this weeks food - Indian.

Di :-)