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.