Have you ever come up with a dish that is so tasty you think you invented it yourself, only to find out later that it’s actually one of the great national dishes of not one but many different nations?
Well, that happened to me when I thought I was a culinary genius for coming up with the most delicious breakfast egg dish I’d ever eaten. I was simply using leftover ingredients that I had on hand from my mostly Italian/Sicilian/Mediterranean cooking. Well, little did I realize that everywhere from Palestine to Turkey to Lebanon and Algeria, everyone has been making this dish, or something very similar to it: Shakhshouka (also spelled Shakshuka).
In Turkey, the same ingredients (onion, peppers, tomato sauce) are used but the eggs are scrambled and the dish is called Menemen. An Italian version might use leftover tomato sauce, and in Algeria or Morocco they spell it Chakchouka. In some Middle Eastern recipes they add nutmeg; I do not ever put nutmeg in mine.
I recently worked on a video project for American Muslims for Palestine called Turning Tables, so watch out for that to be published in the near future. I was asked to make a Palestinian recipe or one that was inspired by Palestinian cuisine, so I decided to make my version of Shakhshouka, inspired by the cookbook, The Gaza Kitchen by Laila Al-Haddad, which now has a new and updated version.
Gently warm the olive oil in a large saute pan. Add the onion, green and red peppers and jalapeno. Cook until the peppers have softened. Add the sea salt and ground pepper as they cook.
Add the tomato paste and swirl around the pan to dissolve it as much as possible. Add 1-2 teaspoons of water to thin it out. Add the paprika. Cook until the water has mostly evaporated.
With a wooden spoon, carve out 4 round spots in the pan and crack one egg into each spot. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let cook until the white membrane of the eggs have cooked and whitened.
Remove from heat and drizzle the dish with olive oil, the crumbled feta and chopped parsley. Serve family style on a hot plate on the table, with fresh and warm pita bread.
Bismillah and Sahtein!
You can see a slightly different, faster version that I made for breakfast recently and posted on my Instagram page:
This little dish of Pasta with Bechamel Sauce represents the exact reason why cooking for oneself is not only an act of self-care, but also an experience of empowerment. Why? Because it embodies the art of knowing how to survive and thrive on less- less money, less stuff (i.e. ingredients), fewer cooking tools & gadgets, and more time for the things you actually want to do.
Since I’ve been in Turkey, I’ve had to learn to manage high prices for things that are relatively cheap back in the US (in this case, Parmesan). I’ve also had to substitute for ingredients I simply can’t find very easily (also, Parmesan). I have to stretch fresh seasonal vegetables from one market day to the next or until they come up in my garden because they are way pricier and not nearly as good quality in the larger grocery stores. This is simply not the case in the U.S., as you can still find great looking and tasting organic food products in many reputable grocers nowadays- but that sometimes makes it more tempting to overstuff your fridge with fresh things that will quickly go to waste before you can use them up. Instead, knowing how to cook has saved me from spending money on eating out, eating food I don’t enjoy, or even snacking instead of having a proper meal; and instead using my self-taught cooking skills to be creative and a master of stretching the food budget while never sacrificing on taste. Now that is empowering.
So what happened here and why the big deal over Béchamel? Typically, any type of French sauce is considered difficult, but they’re really not once you’ve practiced them. Béchamel is the first types of French sauces one anyone would learn in culinary school because it uses basic ingredients we always have on hand (flour + butter) and the sauce is used as a base in soufflés and added to dishes to either stretch them and/or give them more flavor. In fact, once you master it you can basically get even more creative with the dishes you serve it on, too. It requires a little bit of juggling ingredients in that you have to get the roux (flour + butter) mixture just right and you have to whisk the butter in vigorously and quickly so that the flour doesn’t clump your sauce, but you get the hang of it once you practice- just like any other skill.
I was very limited on ingredients at home and was actually craving pasta Alfredo, but without the Parmesan that I didn’t have, I was able to make Béchamel, so that’s what I did- without a recipe, because it’s already in my head.
I’m not an Executive Chef at a fancy restaurant; I’m a home cook just like you, which means you can do this, too. Wouldn’t you feel like your very own Master Chef at home if you made something like this for yourself, without fuss? It’s doable, I promise you.
Both recipes and easy instructions for making Alfredo and Béchamel can be found in the My Halal Kitchen cookbook and only require a few essential base ingredients: flour, butter, milk, salt, black pepper. Red pepper flakes on top make it more Turkish, but you can leave those out and add some fresh herbs or nothing at all. It’s your dish, so you do you.
I recently filmed this quick video to show how I make one of my favorite chicken dishes ever. It’s pretty versatile, but the way I use it most is when making my recipe for Chicken Pita Rolls with Hummus & Tabbouleh.
If you have any questions about the technique please leave them below. Enjoy!
One thing I’ve learned about taking the bitterness out of an eggplant is to salt it generously. If you can, place a heavy pan on top of it to help the eggplants “sweat” a bit. After about 15 minutes, dry up the eggplant slices with cotton/paper towels. Proceed to use the eggplant in your desired recipe.
Do you have any tips on cooking with eggplants that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.
holidaysThere are so many benefits to fasting in Ramadan, much of which becomes a benefit to the individual, such as gaining a deep empathy for those with less than ourselves. The first thing that comes to mind is food- and to waste it is shameful across all cultures and religions. Let’s be the best we can be and live a more mindful life by paying attention, being conscious of not only what we’re putting into our bodies in Ramadan, but also what we don’t need in the first place. Let’s commit to minimizing waste, recycling food and food scraps and learning to live more with less.
Here are my 7 tips for that:
1. Thoroughly clean out your kitchen pantry and fridge.Cleaning and organizing feels good any time of year, but I personally really don’t like to start Ramadan feeling frazzled and disorganized. It’s harder to concentrate on prayers and with low energy throughout the day, nothing too monumental is going to get cleaned out and organized when I’m fasting. So, do it now.
2. Take stock of what you’ve already got that can (and should) be used in Ramadan.After cleaning everything out, this is much easier. Gather all like things together and really take stock of what you have. You might discover that you have 5 different types of salt and three boxes of dried parsley you didn’t know you had and put those on your grocery list. Okay, that’s just me many times- and speaking from experience, it works–and saves $$$–to not skip this step. You’re welcome.
3. Plan a menu. I can’t stress this part enough. It’s something that needs to be done every Ramadan, preferably before it begins, but as soon as you can. Look at old menus you’ve made, if you have them, and see what was quick and easy, made you feel good and made your family happy. That’s all that matters at the end of the day when you’re hungry, anyway.
4. Don’t shop when you’re hungry (i.e. fasting)Try to do all of the shopping now. Like right now. You can shop online for meats, toiletries (you still need those non-edibles throughout the month, too), and plan ahead for morning trips to the store when your Suhoor is well-established in your stomach and you’re not buying everything in sight out of ‘necessity’.
5. Factor in the parties/gatherings you’ll attend. If you’re a social butterfly who ends up attending many Iftar gatherings, then perhaps you just simply don’t need to buy a lot of food throughout the month. But, you should still get the hostess gifts ahead of time.
6. Incorporate leftovers at every meal. Whether someone gave them to you or you had extra food from last night’s Iftar, incorporate as much as you can into the next meal- Suhoor or Iftar, especially if you’re not a cereal-only person a like me at Suhoor time. It just makes life easier, and that’s a very good thing to experience after an incredibly long day of fasting and all the other parts of life that remain during Ramadan.
7. Compost all the food scraps you can. This may not be feasible for everyone who doesn’t have a compost bin, but maybe you know someone who gardens and who does have one. Ask around- just ask 5 people, you never know! Some people have small bins, some people even have chickens who can use vegetable scraps- I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to take anything good and ‘green’. What a great way to give back to the Earth what Allah swt gave to us from it.
What other steps would you add to this list? Help us out by adding in the comments section below.
I was very limited on ingredients at home and was actually craving pasta Alfredo, but without the 
