It is the first day of a new year, and one of my resolutions is to being active again in one of the few things that (perhaps) I do well: writing. I have postponed this article for a long time for various reasons, but here I am finally preparing it.
Today I would like to talk about an experience I had while living in Jordan. I'm a bit nostalgic and 2020 was not a year full of social events. However, my life in Amman was very full and active, and one of the very beautiful experiences, related to food, was the Yemeni cooking class organized by Deewan Institute.
Unfortunately, I have never been to Yemen, a country currently ravaged by war. Just a few days ago, an airport bombing in Aden killed more than twenty people.
The war in Yemen began in 2015, and after more than five years, it is still ongoing. The country is located in the Arabian Peninsula and has a very old history.
While doing research for my thesis in 2016, in Morocco, I discovered a little anecdote about my family. When I asked a relative where our tribe, located in the south of the country, came from, I expected the answer to be "somewhere from the sub-Saharan countries". Instead, he surprised me by telling me that we are most likely from Yemen. I therefore feel very close to this sweet country with a bitter situation.
Without further ado, I would now like to talk about Saltah and Bent Al-Sahen, two dishes prepared by the Yemeni teacher of the cooking class I attended.
Saltah is an old Yemeni dish that some say is thousands of years old, mainly consumed for lunch in the northern parts of Yemen. To be honest, I didn't expect I would eat it, especially considering that it contained a lot of ingredients that I didn't like. However, the dish was really delicious.
Ingredients: Tomato (2 pieces), potato, chili, garlic (2), minced meat (half kilo), parsley, coriander, fenugreek (powder, it’s a very important ingredient!), spices (salt, pepper, cumin, Tumeric), onion, oil.
(1)Sink the meat broth and the fenugreek in water for an hour. (2) Use the blender to make the sauce; put the tomatoes and the parsley, chili, garlic coriander, fenugreek, spices. (3) On the main pot, cook the minced meat with onions first and then add the meat, potatoes, then the sauce.
Bent al Sahen literally translates to “daughter of the plate” (it can also be called Sabayah). This sweet dish should be the perfect symbol of this blog as it has among its ingredients both ghee and honey (samna & assal).
Ingredients: Flour, salt, 3 eggs, yeast, ghee, black seeds, honey.
(1)make the dough using the eggs and the yeast and flour. (2) let the dough rest for half an hour. (3) cut the dough to pieces and then let it rest for 15 minutes. (4) make the layers and add the ghee between them, then pack in the oven and cover it with black seeds and honey.
My hope is to, one day, eat those delicious dishes in Yemen. Happy New Year and sahthein!
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