Cooking, the Arabic way...

   If you are someone that isn’t content in the kitchen you just might not be happy being married to an Arab! Meals in the Arabic world are an important part of the day, when the entire family gathers to eat, share their day and be together. Here is Saudi there is a break from 1 or 2 until 5 PM at which time everyone goes home for the mid day meal and a siesta. There are only a hand full of 24 hour grocery stores so far and very few 'one shift' companies, but nothing else stays open.
   The noon time meal is the large daily meal and most Arabic dishes require a lot of preparation before actually cooking them and almost every dish has some sort of topping that’s done at the last minute. Not to mention the daily salad that’s a must on the table!
   I’m very happy that the big meal is at mid day because I can’t see myself every night in the kitchen doing all that cooking when dinner is not before 8 PM. Also there are no short cuts in the Arab kitchen, everything used is fresh and the washing and preparing of fresh vegetables adds to the “on your feet time”.
 For our family, there is also a large basket of fresh greens eaten raw, this consists of corrot (kor-rot, gorgeer (gor-geer, a leafy green) and sometimes radishes and their greens (if they are young and tender) and some hot chilli peppers and sliced white onions. I have not seen either of the greens in the states so don’t know the English names.   .

A typical meal will have at least two dishes plus a rice dish, the two dishes will be either two types of vegetables cooked differently than each other or a meat/ chicken dish and a vegetable dish. A favorite meal and can be served on it’s own is the Saudi kubsa, (kub-sa, meat or chicken is cooked in a sauce then rice added to absorb the sauce). Kubsa is served with a green type of salad and another salad like yogurt with cucumbers and a dish of mixed pickles or lemon with garlic pickle. When unexpected guests appear it’s taken for granted that the host and hostess will keep them for the coming meal and Kubsa is the easiest to prepare quickly although it takes at least 2 hours (for meat) and 1 1/4 hours for chicken to complete.
   My daily routine is to be in the kitchen at 11 AM to get things started, then on to cooking, so it’s ready by 1:30 to be eaten. If  I am making any dish that needs more preparation time then I’m in the kitchen at 10 AM. The dish that needs the most preparation, in my view, is stuffed grape vine leaves (originally Greek if I’m not mistaken), each grape leaf is stuffed with a mixture of rice, meat, tomatoes and spices, the rolling of the leaves takes the time, then when finally done they need at least 40 minutes to cook slowly. This is a lot of work but so well worth it and I make sure I make enough for a second meal, might as well as long as I’m in the mood to stand there and roll those little leaves!!
   Almost every Arabic dish will have chopped onions and mashed garlic in it, some dishes ask for several onions finely chopped while other dishes require mashed garlic lightly browned in oil then added to the food. When I visit my sister in the states and after grocery shopping she will comment at how many onions I buy and has nicknamed me “the onion lady”.... She also can’t believe how much time I am willing to spend in the kitchen cooking a meal!
   In our home (and perhaps 60% of all homes in Saudi) we eat from a wide international variety, Saudi, Italian, American, Syrian, Chinese, Indian and Thailandi foods, to mention a few. My second and fourth child prefer steaks and potatoes while the first and third along with my husband prefer Arabic cooking! I have learned to make most of the dishes my mother-in-law cooks, she is from the Nejdi tribe of Riyadh and their cooking is not known by the rest of Saudi. When we have dinner guests and I make up traditional Nejdi foods, our guests are surprised and impressed with the meal, ha ha.... I even had my mother-in-law show me how to make the Kubsa spice that is typical of Nejdi cooking, a mixture of 14 different spices and each home might make it slightly different.
   One dish my husband loved, and requested often, was lambs feet stewed, don’t say yuck because in the southern US they still eat pigs feet! I learned from my mother-in-law how to clean the feet properly before cooking,  their is a hair ball between the hoofs that has to be removed. Now, that dish is considered too full of cholesterol so my husband is off it thank goodness. One dish I use to make was stewed dried shrimp, tiny shrimp salted and dried, when they cooked they made such a bad smell in the house, most people cook this dish outside on a small portable gas burner, you can imagine that I don’t cook it often because ONLY my husband eats it!
   Here I can add an antidote, my husband came into the kitchen while I was learning to clean the lambs feet, he told his mother to make sure she got the hair and black off the feet. His mother pointed to a dish of white flour and said not to worry that it’s cleaned several times and in different ways. After he left, his mother looked at me and said, “I just told him that to shut him up, a man’s place isn't in the kitchen with the woman!”. I quite agree with her, if he wants to cook then HE will stand there and do it, not ask for this and for me to chop that!!!
   During special occasions when all of our families gets together at the beach (three brothers have beach cabins there and the rest of us split up and find a place to sleep or go home after an evening together), one of the brothers will slaughter a lamb for a supply of meat and nothing goes to waist. A stew is put together about 10 PM and allowed to simmer all night and eaten as breakfast! Ug.... what is in it? The head (remember to remove the nose worm), liver, kidneys, testicles, feet, stomach (make sure to clean it well) and the intestine, you must run water through it several times, then using her fingers my sister-in-law somehow crochets them into a small neat bundle! I am ok with all of this, just as long as I don’t have to do it or eat it!!
   One year my sister visited us in Kuwait and my son had gone out to buy a fresh chicken for dinner. My sister came to me saying, “there is a chicken on your kitchen floor” and I asked why she didn't pick it up, she replied, “with the head on it” he he. We had a chicken/ egg store near our house and you went in and pointed to the live and clucking chicken that you wanted, it was slaughtered and plucked then put into a bag. YOU had to remove the head and innards that were stuck inside and still warm! Luckily I had an Indian lady working for me and she did the job.
   My husband and I have done our share of lamb slaughtering at home, which is nothing special in Saudi. You make an offering of a lamb on special occasions, a new baby, a new home or a new car, as an example. This type of offering is mentioned in the Koran, 1/3 of the meat goes to a neighbors, 1/3 to a needy person and the remainder is for your own use. I remember after my second son’s birth, we were having the Tesmeyah (tes-me-yah, baby naming party or equivalent of a Baptism) and when the lamb on a large tray of rice arrived, the lamb (head still there, some do go after the tongue and other things) had a bright red bow tied around the neck!
   When we slaughtered a lamb after buying my first car in Kuwait (yes! women drive there) I had to keep our 1 year old German shepherd and two cats inside while the hired man did the slaughtering in the drive way. The dog was going wild trying to get out at the poor man who could see him barking at him through the glass door. The cats could smell the fresh meat and were running around meowing along with the barking dog. When my husband came in and saw all of this he said, “All you need now is a few big parrots or rabbits to add to the confusion”.....
   When a host wants to show his guest how much he appreciates his friendship or help he will make a meal of a whole lamb on a tray of rice. A full grown local lamb will cost about $90 to $125 then add the cooking and rice, but the host will buy it before thinking twice, he wants to show his hospitality and generosity. Of course the host could make the meal with a baby goat weighing about 10lbs, poor thing!

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   Then there is The Art of Eating With Your Hands, you don’t just dig in, there is an etiquette for this! Large trays (2 1/2 feet or larger) of rice with a whole or half lamb on it are placed on the table setting at intervals so that 6 persons can easily reach it. Because no one has a dinning table large enough to accommodate more than 12 persons the setting is made on the floor which works just fine and is some what better than a buffet setting! First, you use only your right hand at the table or when offering any food or drink to someone, the left hand is used for personal hygiene after every use of the bathroom so it’s not supposed to touch any food meant for others. This is why thieves have their right hands cut off, an added disgrace of having to use his left hand for everything.

   If you wish to add some salad, from a vegetable dish or other item onto the rice, you use a spoon to take some from its serving bowl and add to your spot of rice. When trying to take meat from the lamb it’s customary for two persons to hold and pull the meat, again not using your left hand. Of course some one might cut up portions of the lamb and leave it sitting there for anyone to take. But usually it’s up to the dinners to get the meat he wants. Those that enjoy the tongue or brains will use the lower jaw bone as a lever and pry open two other bones to get inside the head...... When the meal is over you can see on each tray of rice, a definite thin line of rice left between each persons spot of eating, sort of like a cake slice with a divider line in between.
   Dinner in Saudi is the lighter meal and in our home it’s just as lunch is in the states, things done quickly, like hot dogs or tuna in mayonnaise and all sorts of egg dishes. Fast food is always a favorite for dinner as well, but we keep this for the weekends. The meal is eaten after 8 PM and in many homes as late as 10 PM, it’s a way of life that you get use to! While my sister was with us in Kuwait, she saw how my husband would come in at 9 PM or later with a friend or two and ask me to make dinner for them and saw how I’d think nothing of this, a different way of life indeed!
   My eldest son is constantly handing me recipes and asking me to look them over and try something new. I finally got tired of this and told him, “I’d rather be doing something else than stand in the kitchen, you try them.” so he doesn't do this as often as before he .... He is constantly experimenting with cooking and does some very good dishes, like split shrimp in a garlic marinade and bar b qued, he’d love for me to do the same but not this girl.......

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   During the Moslem month of Ramadan or the holy month of fasting, most of my day is spent in the kitchen!!!!! The meal, breaking of the fast, hence breakfast, is served at sunset each day, see my notes about the Moslem Hejra calender.
   The breakfast is at sunset and another meal is around 3 or 4 AM. Some homes cook (around 1 AM) a new dish for this meal while others eat from leftovers. Some people stay up to have this meal, some sleep then wake up to eat, while others just wake up to drink water, but for us, we eat a second time around 1:30 then sleep for the night. The entire month of Ramadan has a festive feel and each day when we sit for the breakfast, I think in awe, how every one else in Saudi is also sitting at this same moment!
   The first year I was married we would go to my in-law’s home and I’d watch and learn a new dish each day. Four things are on the table EVERY DAY during Ramadan,

- dates, either as is or cooked with brown flour and called Gishdah (gish-dah), most people break their fast with dates. In the picture Gisdah in the bowl and rolled into shapes, some covered with sesame seeds. my picture

- soup (fresh every day)
- fool (not you, the food), a bean dish very much like the Mexican re-fried beans only smoother and better tasting. Next to this is a salad of coriander, tomatoes and lemon juice.
- sambosa (sam-boo-sa), dough patties stuffed with either a meat mixture, cheese or spinach and either deep fried or baked.
Then there is a “plate of the day” as I call it, some main dish for anyone interested in 'other' food and the basket of fresh greens.
 Can't forget the drinks, a jug of very cold fruit cordial and a jug of water, perhaps flavored with rose water and another drink of choice, such as fresh orange or strawberry juice.
  But the stopper of the breakfast are the sweets! I do not make as many as I use to but at least two types of sweets are made daily! During Ramadan the sweets have to be of the Arabic variety, I've put out western type deserts but they just don’t cut it during Ramadan! The one exception would be Cream Caramel.

Another goodie desert is Om Ali (the mother of Ali) which is layers of pastry, coconut, pistachio nuts and raisins soaked in a mixture of milk, sugar and cream then browned in the oven, very delicious and easy to make!
   After the mean we all go into the family room and the Gahwa (gah-wah) or Arabic coffee is served and someone brings in the incense burner with bahour (ba-hour, sandal wood that is expensive) giving off it’s smoke and beautiful fragrance (when you have a good type), a nice way to end a huge meal!!!!
   There are some simple dishes that any of you could make if you wanted to taste typical Saudi food, my adaptation of Chicken Kubsa is very good and if anyone wants the recipe I'll  send it to you!

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