Recipe: BB Chicken Sandwich

 

Here is a quick recipe for a good sandwich for big gatherings, it should not take you a long time to prepare and it requires a very small number of ingredients. BB, or Black Beautify, is a reference to the balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce   used in it.

Ingredients (for 6 sandwiches): 

• 4 medium chicken breasts (diced into cubes)
• 5 sliced cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 6 buns of white bread
• Salt/black pepper

Method

1. Wash the chicken cubes and then drain them well. Put the chicken cubes in a bowl, add the Worcestershire sauce, the salt and finely crushed black pepper.
2. Mix the chicken with the ingredients well and leave the bowl in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes minimum. You. Then take them out of the fridge 15 minutes before you use them.
3. Put a frying pan on a medium flame, add the EVOO and the garlic to it, then as soon as the oil starts to sizzle, add the chicken. Sauté the chicken until it turns white and then add the balsamic vinegar. Keep sautéing the chicken until it is done. If the chicken is still not cocked well you can add small amounts of water or chicken stock to help cook it.
4. Slice the buns and fill them with the chicken. You can add cheese or any kind of sauce you like. It can be served with chips or fries.

Kofta with Zucchini Sauce

An exotice Arabic dish we cooked earlier this month, takes about an hour to make, and is recommended for larger gatherings.

Ingredients

Kofta

• 1 Kg minced beef
• 2 tbs finely chopped parsley
• 2 tbs finely chopped scallions
• 1 small minced red onion
• 1 tbs of cinnamon
• Salt/pepper

Zucchini Sauce

• 4 medium zucchinis
• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
• 6 chopped cloves of garlic
• ½ tbs of crushed red chili
• 2 tbs chopped parsley
• ½ tbs chopped mint
• 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt/pepper

Method

1. Mix well all the ingredients of the Kofta. Create finger shaped (or balls) of the mix. Put a little bit of oil on a non-stick frying pan and start frying the kofta until it is well done. (It is also possible to grill the kofta instead of frying it if you would rather do that instead).
2. For the zucchini sauce, add some olive oil to a saucepot and sauté the garlic and the red chili for 3 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and after a minute add all the chopped tomatoes with the bay leaves. Wait until the sauce starts to boil then cover the saucepot and put it on the lowest flame for 10 minutes.
3. Cut the zucchini to small pieces and sauté it in the same pan you used for frying the kofta . Keep sautéing the zucchini for 5 minutes.
4. Add the zucchini, parsely and mint to the tomatoe sauce in the saucepot. Add some salt and peper as desired to the sauce. Cover the sauce pot and leave it on a low flame until the zucchini is well cooked.
5. Place the kofta on the serving plate and pour the sauce on top of it.

Recipe: Cheesy Meat Balls

We are not dead!

We apologise for not making any posts for the whole of October. The Omani Cuisine never really stopped during that period, but for various random reasons we never managed to sit down and write what we have been up to. We promise that we will make up for this with regular recipes and reviews from now on. Our latest kitchen adventure is, as we like to call it, a meat ball sub, very fun to make and to eat.

Ingredients (To make four subs)

• 0.5 Kg of pure minced beef
• Handful of chopped shallot
• I teasp of chopped mint
• Handful of chopped coriander
• I tsp of Dijon mustard
• 3 crushed cloves of garlic
• Mozzarella cheese
• 2 teasp of cinnamon
• Crushed red chili
• Salt/pepper
• 1 tsp of flour
• Balsamic vinegar
• 2 chopped medium sized tomatoes
• 1 chopped medium sized white onion
• 1 Lemon
• Bay leaves
• Cardamom
• Cloves
• Tomato paste

Method

• Mix the minced meat with the shallots, mint and coriander in a bowl.
• Add the Dijon mustard, garlic and cheese to the bowl mix.
• Add 1 tsp of cinnamon, crushed chili, salt, pepper and flour and mix these with all the ingredients well together.
• Divide the mix into medium sized balls and put them in a fridge for half hour.
• In the mean time, boil some water (about 1 L) in a pot. Add the remaining cinnamon to the water when it starts boiling. Wait 5 minutes and then add the tomato paste, and the zest and juice of the lemon. Stir the water mix and leave to boil for another 10 minutes. Filter the water to get rid of the hard ingredients and leave the water to be used later.
• Using another pot, fry the onion in some oil until the onion turns to golden. Add the tomatoes and stir. When the tomato starts drying up add some of the water mix we made in the earlier step(don’t put much water, as it only to make sure the tomato and onion don’t burn). Stir and repeat for a period of 20 minutes.
• Heat a frying pan and put some butter on it. Get the balls out of the fridge and fry them on the pan while turning the balls around to fry all the surface of the balls. Once the whole surface of all the balls is fried add the vinegar and continue turning the balls around.
• Start adding some of the tomato/onion mix and the liquid to the meat balls. Keep this process for 15 minutes to fully cook the meat balls.

The meat balls can be served with any kind of plain pasta or to be served as a sub sandwich with chips on the side

Champions Burgers

Prior to the launch of the Omani Cuisine, we attempted to make a burger from scratch, but the experiment failed miserably, we recently gave it another shot after doing some research and some unofficial experimentation at other venues, and as a result the Champions Burger was successfully born at the Omani Cuisine – coincidently AC Milan won the Champions League on the same day.

Ingredients (To make six burgers)

• 600g of pure minced beef
• Coriander (كزبرة) finely chopped
• 2 small shallots (بصل أخضر), finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely crushed
• 1 tbsp barbecue sauce
• 2 tbsp Thai chili sauce
• 1 tbsp flour
• Nandos mixed spices crush
• salt and pepper
• 1 big onion sliced into rings
• extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Method

1. mix the beef well with the coriander, shallots and the flour in a bowl.
2. add the garlic, barbecue sauce, 1/2 a spoon of the Thai chili sauce, the Nandos crush, salt and pepper and mix with the beef.
3. divide the beef mix into six equal portions to make six burgers. (you can cook them directly or keep them in the fridge to cook later)
4. heat some EVOO in a frying pan until it is screaming hot.
5. fry the burgers, each side left for six minutes.

Extra – Spicy Cooked Onion to be served in the bun along with the burger.
Leave the burger on the side and fry the onion in a pot with a little of EVOO, wait until it turns golden and then add the rest of the Thai chili sauce and some salt and pepper.

[عيش ودجاج] Chicken & Rice

Rice in Arabic is called A’ruz, but in the majority of the Gulf states nobody calls it by its proper Arabic name and instead refer to it as Aish (3aish), which literally means “the state of living” or “life”.

Rice is a principal element in the Gulf diet and it has to be served for every-single-lunch-meal. Many nationals in the area will not consider a meal they eat around noon time without rice a ‘lunch meal’.

It is interesting to notice the distinction between the naming convention of rice based meals in Arabic and English. In English, the meal is called ‘something and rice’ while in Arabic Khaleeji dialect, the rice always comes first, it is Aish wa Laham (rice and meat), or Aish was Samak (rice and fish). Another interesting fact is the different usage of the word Aish in other Arabic states, such as the Mediterranean Arab states and Egypt, where Aish means bread and not rice, as bread is the principal element of of the majority of the meals served there.

Our dish today is a very basic ‘aish’ meal, check out the ingredients and method on how to make your own ‘aish’.

Ingredients

• 2 mugs of rice (Uncle bens rice)
• 400g of boneless chicken diced into small cubes
• 2 medium onions sliced into short wide strips
• 2 medium capsicums sliced into short wide strips
• 2 medium tomatoes diced into small cubes
• 2 clovers of garlic crushed
• chili crushed
• tomato paste
• mixed chicken spices
• salt and pepper
• 1 lemon

Method

Chicken

1. Put the chicken in an oiled heated pot and stir until it turns white then add salt, pepper, and mixed chicken spices.
2. Add the onion, capsicum, tomato, garlic, and chili to the mix and then stir and leave for 5 minutes.
3. Add the tomato paste and a mug of water. Mix and add the juice of the lemon.
4. Lower the heat and leave for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. You can add more water to the chicken if all the water in the pot evaporates and the chicken is not yet cooked.

Rice

1. Add only a quarter of a mug of rice to an oiled pot and stir until the rice turns brown.
2. Add the rest of the rice to the pot and add 3 mugs of water. Add salt to it, stir well, cover and leave for 20 minutes on low heat.
3. Remove the pot from the cooker and leave on the side for 5 minutes before serving.

Boring Chicken Sandwitch

This was an experiment for making something different this week, the original idea was to make a club sandwich, but we ended up with the result you see above. The boring chicken sandwich was saved by the creamy sauce we added to it. This is a simple snack that you can make, check out the ingredients and method below.

Ingredients (4 sandwitches)

• 400g of chicken breasts sliced into small strips
• 1 medium sized onion minced finely
• 1 red capsicum sliced into thin strips
• 2 garlic clovers
• 2 green chillies
• Nandos crushed spices mix
• butter 1.5 tbsp
• half a mug of milk
• 1.5 tbsp of flour
• salt and pepper
• brown toasted bread

Method

1. In a small pot over low heat melt the butter.
2. Add the flour immediatly after all the butter melts – make sure to stir the mix while adding.
3. Add the milk gradually while stirring to ensure that the mix blends properly.
4. Add half a mug of water to mix and keep on stirring.
5. Add salt and pepper and stir.
6. keep stirring. (Now you understand why this is boring) Stir from time to time for a period of 10 minutes. You should get a thick white cream. You can adjust the viscosity of the cream by adding more water. Once done leave covered on the side.
7. Crush the garlic clovers with the chillies and the Nandos spices mix.
8. Melt some butter on a fraying pan.
9. Fry the minced onion and capsicum slices on the pan for four minutes.
10. Add the chicken to the mix and fry while stirring until the chicken turns white.
11. Add the crushed spices mix with one tbsp of vinegar to the chicken mix on the pan.
12. Add half a mug of water, cover the pan and leave for 5 minutes.
13. Remove the cover and wait for all the water to evaporate before adding the cream we made at the beginning.
14. Stir the mix until cream is absorbed by the chicken and the mix is creamy.
15. Take out and serve with toast as sandwitches.

Fish Time!

A bachelor living in Oman is usually much used to eating chicken, and I mean here a lot of chicken. There isn’t much to choose from as 90% of edible food served in casual restaurants around muscat is chicken-this and chicken-that. A few restaurants in Oman serve decent fish, and that really is weird when you think about as Oman has a coast that is more than 1500km in length and fish is one of its main exports.

Sick of the oil-soaked friend fish served around here, and in hope that our blog does not turn to the Omani Chicken Cuisine, we decided to have fish this time. Hope you like it!

• Halibut Fish, 250g
• 3 clovers of Garlic
• 1/4 teasp of crushed Ginger
• Olive Oil
• Vinegar
• green Chili
• 1/2 teasp Oregano powder
• 1 lemon
• Salt
• 1/2 teasp Cumin
• parsely

Method

1. Crush the garlic and the green chili. Add the ginger, cumin and the oregano to the crushed mix.
2. Add the olive oil and the vinger to the mix. Get the lemon and peel some of its skin to get the lemon zest. After getting the zest add the juice of the lemon and some finely chopped parsley to the mix.
3. Clean the slices of the halibut fish well then put them in the mix to marinate for one hour.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan. Fry the slices of Halibut with marination mix. Fry the halibut until both sides get red as seen in the picture. Add a little amonut of water to the fish to make sure it is done.

The Fish is served with Saiadia Rice and potato salad

• 1 mug of Rice (Uncle bens rice)
• 2 red onions
• 1 tomato
• salt
• 1/2 teasp cumin
• Pine seeds

Method

1. mince the onions and fry them in an oiled pot until the onions turn brown (very brown just a degree before they turn black).
2. Add the minced tomato to the onions and keep heating the mix for a while.
3. Add the rice, salt and cumin. Mix the rice with rest of the ingredents well.
4. Add 2 1/4 mugs of water. Give the rice a last stirr then close the lid, leave it for 20 minutes until it is cooked.
5. Fill a bowl with the rice then flip it over on a plate to have the round shape seen in the picture above. Garnish the rice with fried pine seeds.

Potato Salad
Ingredients

• 1 medium Potato
• 1 clover of Garlic
• Parsley
• 1 tspVinger
• Salt /Cumin ( As desired)

Method

1. Cut the potato into cubes and boil them in water until they are done ( do not over cook the potato)
2. Drain the potato cubes. Minced the garlic and finely chop the parsley.
3. Add the garlic, parsley, vinger, cumin and salt to the potato and mix the will without crushing the potato cubes.

Pollo Della Pasta De Roma

I envy you Italians for your beautiful country, your excellent football tournaments, and most of all, your amazing cuisine. As I am the biggest fan of the world’s greatest football club Juventus, you might assume that I dislike supporters of other teams, but I actually enjoy staying in touch with all Italian fans around here, so I invited a fan of the club AS Roma for lunch to have the favorite meal of Italian fans: pasta!
As a token of my Italian love, I named this recipe “Pollo Della Pasta De Roma” or the chicken pasta of Roma in English.

Ingredients: (for 3 persons)

• 300 grams of penne(tube) pasta
• 3 large chicken breasts – chopped into small pieces
• 3 medium sized brown onions
• 4 medium sized capsicums (green, yellow, red, and orange)
• 4 clover of garlic crushed
• some parsley
• 1 tablespoon of wheat
• 100 grams of tomato paste
• salt/pepper
• butter
• Nando’s hot peri peri grind (crushed spiced)
• Nando’s wild her peri-peri souce (hot sauce)

Method:

• Pasta

1. Boil water in a pot. When the water starts boiling add salt, pepper and oil while stirring.
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water and keep for about 10 minutes.
3. Drain the water from the pasta.
4. Chop 3/4 of the 4 kinds of capsicum and an onion into small short strips.
5. Fry the capsicum and the onion in on an oiled frying pan until the onion turns yellow and capsicum softens.
6. Add the pasta to the pan with capsicum and onion while stirring. Add some of the Nando’s crushed spices while stirring. Stir the pasta mix for five minutes and then serve it with the chicken.

• Chicken and Sauce

1. Crush the remaining capsicum and the2 onions into fine little.
2. Put some oil on a hot cooking pot, add some butter. When the butter melts in the oil add the crushed mix of capsicum and onion. Keep stirring the mix until the onion turns to a golden color.
3. Add the chicken pieces to the mix and stir the mix until the chicken turns white.
4. Add salt, pepper, and the Nando’s crushed spices. Keep stirring for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the Nando’s wild herb sauce and some fine chopped parsley. Keep stirring for another couple of minutes.
6. Add the tomato paste and the wheat while stirring.
7. After mixing everything together add a mug of water and stir the mix well. Cover the pot well and keep it on a low heat until the chicken is cooked. If all the water is gone and the chicken is not cooked add little more water and wait until it is cooked.

No-Mozzarella Chicken Rolls

Ingredients

• 2 medium white onions
• 4 capsicums (green, red, yellow, and orange)
• 3 garlic clovers
• 4 chicken breasts
• 4 Irani flat bread (or any type of wrap-able flat bread)
• 1 teasp lime
• salt/pepper
• chili powder
• cinnamon powder
• mixed arabian spices
• 1 teasp vinegar

Directions

1. Chop onion and capcicum into rings, crush garlic, and slice breast into long strips.
2. Heat the frying pan and add little of vegetable oil. When the oil is heated up put the onion and keep stirring until it gets golden.
3. Add the chicken to the onion until it whitens. Then add(while stirring) the mixed arabian spices, salt, chili, pepper, and little of cinnamon. Add the vineger and the crushed garlic to the mix and keep stirring for two minutes.
4. Add the chopped capsicum and the lime and stir until the chicken and the capcicum are properly cooked.
5. Once ready, spread the bread and put the chicken in the middle then wrap it well. Get a clean frying pan and dry fry the wraps until they go browny and crispy.
6. Preferred additional fillings with wrap ( sweet onion sauce )

Serve with potato wedges or chips, and marina sauce.