Omani Cuisine

This post has been submitted by chef Mohammed Al Manthari - a Omani student in New Zealand. Please feel free to share your recipes and reviews with the rest of the Omani Cuisine community by emailing us at contact@omanicuisine.com.

Today’s recipe is rich with protein and minerals and tastes great with its seasonal spices and basil leaves. The locals of Oman are known for their many different fish dishes (Fish is the second largest export of the country after all!). I have chosen this recipe as it is one of the healthiest and most tasteful. A must-east for both grilled food fans and sea food fans!

The Ingredients are:

• ½ Kg of Tuna (Gaithar) Fish cubes.
• A selection of vegetables (any of all):
  • Courgettes
  • Mushrooms
  • Cauliflower,
  • Yellow, Green, Red Peppers
  • Egg plant
  • Lady fingers (Okra)
• 2 crushed green chillies (amendable, 1 makes it mild).
• 1 large onion
• 3 tomatoes
• Basil (a handful)
• 1 lemon
• 2 teaspoons fish curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon red chilli powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic

Before anything, marinate the fish cubes for an hour to 3 hours into bowel and add the green chillies, lemon, fish curry powder, salt, black pepper, turmeric, garlic and red chilli powder, then return the bowel in the fridge.

1. Cut onions into small cubes.
2. Heat up the pot and add 2-teaspoon oil (preferably, olive oil).
3. Add the onions and let it fry until golden brown.
4. then cut the tomatoes into smaller cubes and add them
5. add the marinated fish.
6. let it cook for 10 minutes.
7. add the basil leaves
8. then add all the vegetables and add a cup of warm water.
9. let it all cook for another 20-30 minutes on medium heat.
10. heat the oven and add the fish pieces only to grill for 10-15 minutes, while the rest of the vegetables are cooking in lower heat.

N.B: the spices are adjustable depending on your taste.

Hope you enjoy your vegetable fish dish.

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.