Lamb Kebabs, Roasted Corn, Mashwiya & Mulukhiyah

I am not a chemist in the kitchen. I do not use all the modern technique no, no, no. (board clattering) I intend with big intention to go back to very primitive cooking methods. I respect and admire other people’s techniques, very modern even, but for me, no I’m old fashioned. I like feeling the earth, I want to smell the smoke, I am very romantic in that respect and very romantic. Very romantic indeed. Oh! Wow. Okay. (dishes clanking) Let’s put it here. Let’s put it here. Wow. Erez? Hello. Hi, how are you? Ali Yossi, how’s it going? Thank you, thank you Mulukhiyah! This is Bamia. Eqyptian Bamia Wow, perfect. Wow, lets put in a colander or something. (paper crinkling) (dishes cluttering) Thank you so much. Welcome, welcome. Yossi works with me in workshops, and he has an amazing hand. You are a King. Thank you, thank you. Okay, so let’s start by lighting the fire. (sticks crackling) It’s nice to see you light a fire. You know how to do it. (laughing) You have been doing it for a long time. Cheers (glasses tinkling) Chop it? Yeah. It’s the leg of lamb with the lia we call this the fat from the back, rib cage, fat, it’s very good also for the kebab and we’re going to chop it, mix it with mint leaves, with parsley, with roasted pine nuts. And with Baharat that we’re going to do in a moment. One two, one two, one two, three four. Tomatoes Give me bell peppers as well, okay? Okay, and while the fire is very, very, very strong, now we’re going to put bell peppers directly into the fire, so they will burn from the outside. You’re picking it so it won’t explode. Egyptian bamia. Nice knife no? Oh wow. (laughing) The key element with, in a kebab, is to put at least 30, 35% fat inside the mixture and don’t try to do healthy kebab because it won’t succeed. And you don’t want to kill the vegetables when you burn them, okay? On the fire. Let’s clarify the butter also, we have to clarify the butter. We need to melt it in order to make samna. Samna is clarified butter in Arabic Give it to your father the pine nuts, so you will roast it also and I’ll do the Baharat now. First, I begin with cardamom pods. I just crush them. and take off the green skin. So let’s put some allspice. I put around eight pieces of allspice, I put one tablespoon of black pepper. Okay. I put a half a tablespoon of fennel seeds. Mmhmm. Nutmeg. I put much lower quantity and I just… This is how it goes in the kitchen we are doing things at parallel, because otherwise we won’t be able to feed all those people. Smell Wow. I just added cinnamon to the baharat. Yeah, that’s it. This is not a traditional one because I added the fennel. Yeah. I will chop the parsley. Okay, put the meat and all the greens, chopped onions also. Yeah. And let’s do the mixture. We chopped some fresh onion and the parsley. I put salt, a little more olive oil. Enough enough, for the pine nuts. Cheers. Cheers. How do you say L’Chaim in Arabic? B’Sachtac (To health) B’Sachtac! Just add pine nuts to the lamb here. Let’s bring some nice and tender grapevine leaves. I’m starting it now and we’re going to do kebabs, put them on the fire and enjoy them. I put salt on the Baharat. Put the kebabs on them. We’re going to shape some of the kebabs on the olive branch. Yeah. And some we’re going to put inside the grape leaves. Branches, that I’m wrapping, it’s olive branches, And that’s a technique that I’ve learned from Erez that you need to look around you and see things that you can use in nature. (soft violin music) Let’s take some fennel. (branch crackling) This is beautiful. Erez you know you live in paradise. Thank-you. Yeah. I love corn during the summertime. We’re going to just brush it with the melted butter. And here we have the butter. I think it’s ready. Wow this is gorgeous, this is gorgeous. Good job! Wow, perfect. Now we are doing the Middle Eastern variation on humitas. So here this is an example of a thing you find in nature, and it’s all around us, we can use it to wrap meats and to do salads with, and to do whatever we want with. So you just have to open your eyes and look around and see what’s available and what’s edible. Let’s put it on the grill. (kebab sizzling) Ali, we are peeling the eggplants now. Explain why you put it in a plastic bag, I put it into a colander usually. You can peel the skin. Let me help you, let me help you. We are peeling the veggies and you see that we leave a little of the charred skin because this is part of the flavor. Don’t get scared. It’s good for the flavor. Once all the vegetables are going to be peeled, we’re going to chop them together, spice them, put some olive oil on top of them and we’ll have a gorgeous salad. Don’t clean the charred skin under running water because all the flavors is going to be lost. It’s supposed to be a charred salad. I know it looks messy, but don’t worry, in a moment, we are going to make it messier, because we are going to chop it all. Very nice, let’s clean our hands. (water splashing) Now we are going to chop it. I see. One hot pepper. Yeah, I put two, I put three, sometimes I put four. I want my food to be very hot. I love hot food. Wow, very good humita. Could you peel some garlic cloves for us? Very nice. Okay, we’ve got it. Chop this, chop that, chop six of them. That’s the best part. Now I’ll take all the juices, and let’s put them somewhere so we can drink it later because this is very good also. But not in the salad. Wow, looks amazing. It’s so nice to mix with your hands. You have to clean the hands, sometimes you know. And that’s it. This in English, it’s called Jew’s mallow and it’s very Jewish, as you can see. We can do a salad out of it, we don’t have to cook it like- Oh, really? Yeah, let’s do fresh salad. Well use- It’s a nice twist, you know? Because usually we cook it into a stew with lots of garlic and lemon. Yeah. And we’re going to do garlic and lemon vinaigrette for fresh leaves. So we’ll have something fresh on the side with the Mashwiya salad. Amazing. Okay? Okay that’s enough I think for us, no? We’re only three people. We are crushing the one clove of garlic and we’re adding it to the Mulukhiyah, we’re adding lemon juice. We can use a spinach, we can use a baby swiss chard, we can use baby beets, yellow or red or green. No problem, let’s put some salt. And let’s add some pine nuts. This is Druze pita or a Bedouin pita? Bedouin pita. This is Bedouin pita? Yeah, yeah, yeah of course because they are the Bedouin, there were Druze before you live in houses, not like the Bedouins. The Bedouins, they live in tent and you need to make pita like this. Okay. Gorgeous, gorgeous kebab. Here let’s eat. Ahh! Come to daddy. Come to daddy. Okay, and the tahini. And I put some real silan, which is dates honey on top of the, beautiful charred corn. And I put some salt on the corn. And we take the Mulukhiyah with the lemon juice, pine nuts, and garlic. Let’s put it in the center. I will take some olive oil. Wow wow wow. And we are going to eat with the Mashwiya. And that’s it. We are going to eat. (food crunching) Mmh. Not bad. Very good. To die for, the best recipe. Come, come, come, hello.