Omani Cuisine

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.

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

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.