Whats cooking good looking?

Hi guys, so today I decided to do a post on what I cooked, and do a little recipe/tutorial thingy.  Today on the menu is a Lebanese bean dish with meat (Loubiyeh Bi Lahmeh) and a tasty Turkish Burghul Pilav with Pastirma (Pastirmali Bulgurlu Pilav)

First of all I dont do measurements, so you'll just have to do everything by eye like me.

You will need:  Flat beans, a nice cut of meat with no fat on it, an onion, olive oil, salt, and lebanese 7 spice mix.  For the pilav you will need: Medium grain burghul (cracked wheat) an onion, green turkish chilli (you can use a green capsicum if you cant find the chillis,) pastirma (if you cant find it you can use the italian version which is prociutto or pastrami or something)  tomato paste, salt and pepper, water.

Lets begin!

here are the beans we use

Cut your beans to this size

Dice your onions

Cut meat into cubes

Fry meat in oil

Fry until just a little brown

Here are the lebanese spices we will be using

add spices to the meat and stir until fragrant

It should look like this

Cover with water, reduce heat, and cover

In another pot fry onions with some salt in oil

It should look like this

Add your beans and stir.  Reduce heat and cover remembering
to stir every 10 minutes or so

At this point the meat is tender

Drain and put aside.

Now to begin with the Pilav.  This is the Burghul I use

Chop your Turkish chillis (Sivri Biber)

Fry your onion and chilli together with some salt
until translucent 

At this point I added my pastirma

Then add your tomato paste and fry for a little bit

Then add your Burghul and stir

Add water to cover, remembering that Burghul doesnt need
as much water as rice as it cooks quickly, cover and leave on low heat

Beans are ready :)

Still too much water in the pilav so let it cook a little more

And this is how the end product looks.

Bon Apetit!

Bukhari Rice Recipe

So lebanese cooking doesn't really divulge into Gulf (Khaliji) cooking, but for the sake of being "Arab" I thought I'd share this recipe.  This dish is similar to an Indian biriyani, and in saying that, Saudi/Khaliji cooking has alot of similarity to Indian cooking in the sense that they use alot of spices. Bukhar in Arabic "steam" and the name of this dish comes from the steam created to cook and make the rice fluffy. For those of you who have heard of "kabseh" then this is just as good.

The aroma of this dish is captivating, and will make your neighbours come over and introduce themselves if they haven't already.

Ingredients:4c basmati rice
1kg chicken (traditionally they use a whole chicken, but you may use pieces)
1/2 c oil
4 large onions cut into half rings
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
4 carrots (I don't like carrots so I don't use them)
1 tbs ground cumin
1 c sultanas/currents
Almonds, Pine nuts, Cashews for presentation

MethodWash rice and leave in warm salty water for an hour.  Remove skin of the chicken and wash it, cover the chicken lightly with flour and salt (this is one way to keep that 'chickeny' smell coming out in the cooking process that Arabs use, also cinnamon is used but the abovementioned method is also effective.)  Cut into 6 or 8 pieces.
In a large stainless steel pot, heat the oil, and add the pieces of chicken and cook until golden.  Remove chicken and set aside.  Add more oil and fry the onions until they are golden, add 3 cups of water and leave to boil.  Add chicken to the pot, add salt and pepper, cover the pot and let it boil for 30 mins. 
Remove chicken from broth, and add carrots to broth.  Strain rice and and add it with the cumin to the pot and stir.  Leave it to boil and add the sultanas and chicken-DO NOT STIR. .  Place a piece of foil over the pot and seal the sides and place the lid on top (this keeps the steam in)  turn down to low and leave for an hour. 
During this time you can fry the almonds, pine nuts and cashews in either oil or ghee.
Take out chicken, put rice on a platter, arrange chicken on top and then put the fried nuts on top aswel.

Enjoy!