Another great week in class as we learned about different cousines in different countries. Out of the three countries that we covered last week, the one country or should I say “countries” cousine that caught my eye the most was the Middle East. The Middle East consists of Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Iran, Greece, and Egypt. Greece actually lies in Europe but since the country use the same ingredients as the Middle East, they are considered to be a part the Middle East family. Not to mention, they started the tradition of chefs wearing tall white hats (The more you know). Grains and legumes is the foundation diet which is their ingredients consist of a lot of wheat, herbs & spices such as dill, cilantro, saffron, etc…Also, lamb is heavily consumed in middle eastern countries.
The first dish we prepared was Baba Ghannouj which is an eggplant sesame dip. I’m not much of an eggplant enthusiast, but as a Culinary major I have to try everything. The dip itself turned out excellent with some Tostito scoop chips on the side of course. What would seem like an easy dish, it was actually very difficult at first beause we were dealing with tahini which is a sesame seed paste. Since we made the paste from sesame seeds, it was difficult for us to grind it with our food processor. Once we got the ball rolling, it turned out to be better than I thought. I’ll take Baba Ghannouj over Hummus any day.
The next dish we prepared took the longest but the end result made it worth the while. This dish is called Spanakopita which is a spinach-feta cheese pie. This dish interesting to say the the least due to phyllo dough we used. Phyllo dough is paper thin dough that needs to be handled delicately otherwise it will rip apart. Another thing that made Spanakopita interesting was the heavy use of dill which we could taste in the finished product. It took almost 45 minutes to complete the dish. The finshed product itself turned out great. The texture of the phyllo dough made for good presentation, and the flakiness made for the great taste. The dill also played great part in the taste which is very unique because most of us rarely consumes dill on a regular basis.
In conclusion, yet another great week of class. I learn something new every day about different cooking methods, and cultures. I’m excited about our Countries for next week.
