Ma Aloubeh Recipes

MAKLOUBEH

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 425 C (220C). Add the cauliflower florets and potato slices to one baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spread out. Add the eggplant slices to another baking sheet lined with parchment paper, in a single layer. Drizzle both trays of vegetables with oil and sprinkle with salt. Place both trays in the oven at the same time.
• Roast for around 30 minutes or until vegetables are golden brown and cooked through. they'll probably need around 30 minutes. You can flip the potato slices around halfway through, but it's not necessary. Once vegetables have roasted, remove from the oven and set aside until it's time for assembling.
• Add the oil to a large saucepan over medium heat. Once hot, add the meat pieces and cook, stirring until browned on each side. Add the onion and garlic, the bay leaves, cardamom pods, cloves, and cinnamon sticks.
• Add enough water to the pot to cover the meat completely. I used 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then skim off any foam that accumulates on the surface and discard it.
• Cover the pot, reduce heat to a medium low simmer, and cook for 40-45 minutes or until lamb pieces are cooked through and tender. Alternately, you could cook the meat in an pressure cooker or instant pot according to your preference.
• Once the meat is cooked, pour the stock over a strainer, catching the stock in a bowl. Discard the whole spices, and keep the meat pieces aside.
• To the strained stock, stir in the seven spices or all spice, salt, black pepper, cumin powder and turmeric powder. Taste it, it should taste pretty salty. Set stock aside.
• In a large clean saucepan (you can clean the one you used to make the stock), drizzle the oil to coat the bottom. Layer the tomato slices on the bottom, this will help keep the rice from sticking.
• Arrange the eggplant slices evenly around the pan, coming up the sides of the pan if you can so that they'll sort of end up wrapping the rice mixture (see video below for clarification).
• Sprinkle the eggplants with salt, and add all the meat cubes to the pan. Add the chickpeas on top of the meat. Add half the rice and spread it out evenly. Add the cooked potato slices and half the cauliflower florets. Season these vegetables with a sprinkle of salt.
• Add the second half of the rice on top of the vegetables, and pat with the pack of a wooden spoon to firmly press it into the pan.
• Pour the meat stock over the rice. It should cover the top of the rice by about 1/2 inch. If you need to, add a little water in order to submerge the rice, maybe 1/2 cup or so. Place the pot of rice on medium high heat until the water in it comes to a boil, about 5 minutes or so, then tightly cover (if your lid doesn't fit tightly, you can place a kitchen towel under the lid before covering).
• Reduce heat to low, and cook for 50-55 minutes, until all the broth has been absorbed and the rice is fluffy. Remove from heat and let the pot stand for 5-10 minutes.
• After the rice has rested, remove the lid and place a serving platter or tray on top of the pot. Flip the pot upside down, but don't lift the pot up for a few minutes to give the rice time to drop. After a few minutes pass, slowly use the pot handles to lift and remove the pot.
• Garnish your makloubeh with plenty of toasted nuts and parsley. Enjoy immediately! We like this with yogurt and/or a simple green salad.

MALOOBA

Steps:

• Place chicken in a large pot with 6 cups water, onion, 2 tablespoons allspice, ground cardamom, cardamom seeds, whole cloves and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, and cook until chicken is tender, about 40 minutes. Remove chicken, strain and reserve broth.
• Soak the rice in water while waiting for the chicken to cook. When the chicken is almost done, drain the water off, and stir in 1 1/2 tablespoons of allspice.
• Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the potatoes and cauliflower in the hot oil until browned. They do not need to fully cook.
• In a separate pot, layer fried potatoes on the bottom. This is done so that the rice will not stick to the bottom of the pan. Add the cauliflower and tomatoes, and sprinkle a handful of rice over the vegetables. Remove the bones from the chicken and place the chicken in the pot. Cover with the rest of the rice. Pour in the reserved broth until it reaches a level about 1/2 inch above the level of the rice. Cover the pot, and cook over medium-low heat for 1 hour, until rice is tender.
• When the liquid has absorbed, have a large round tray ready. Uncover the pot, and place the tray over the top. Invert so that the pan is upside down on top of the tray. Let stand for 5 minutes like this, then slowly remove the pot to let the food fall onto the tray.

MA'ALOUBEH

Steps:

• Boil the chicken and reserve the broth.
• Fry the slices of eggplants until golden and set aside.
• Fry the nuts in the ghee and set aside.
• Soak and rinse the rice and place in a bowl.
• Add the spices and salt to the rice.
• In a pot place slices of tomatoes and eggplant at the bottom until covered.
• Put about 1 cup of the rice over the eggplant and tomatoes.
• Place a few pieces of chicken over the rice.
• Put another layer of eggplants & tomatoes over the chicken.
• Put about another cup of rice over the eggplants & tomatoes .
• Put the rest of the chicken over that.
• Put the rest of the rice over the chicken.
• Place the rest of the eggplants & tomatoes over the rice.
• Pour the chicken broth over the layers of rice, chicken and vegetables.
• Place an inverted plate over the final layer and push it down a little.
• Cook for about 3/4 - 1 hr on med to low heat.
• When done remove the dish and invert the pot over a very large dish and garnish with the fried nuts.
• To be served with a salad or yoghurt.

MAKLOUBEH RECIPE- PALESTINIAN RICE WITH LAMB

Steps:

• Once the rice with lamb is cooked, allow to cool a little bit, then flip Makloubeh like a cake using a larger plate than the mouth of the pan.
• Sprinkle with the toasted almonds & chopped parsley.
• Serve with yogurt cucumber salad.

MAQLUBA (OR MAKLOUBEH, PALESTINIAN UPSIDE DOWN RICE)

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F, for the cauliflower.
• Rinse and drain the rice and set aside.
• Dice the onion (chop up fairly finely).
• Chop up the eggplant, courgette and capsicum into rough cube shapes. Basically, quarter the eggplant and courgette lengthwise, then slice.
• Slice the tomatoes into rounds and set aside.
• Cut the cauliflower into bite-sized pieces.
• Arrange the cauliflower pieces on a baking sheet and drizzle 1 Tbsp of EV olive oil all over. Sprinkle a ¼ tsp of salt and some freshly ground black pepper and roast for about 20 at 180˚C/350˚F. Flip halfway through the cooking time.
• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.
• Sauté the onions for about 3-4 minutes.
• Add meat, allspice, salt and some pepper, stir and brown the meat all over and cook for 10 minutes on medium heat. You want the final result to be a little on the dry side, but not too dry. A little moisture is good.
• Grease your saucepan all over. Then start with layering the bottom with the sliced tomatoes. You'll get 2 layers. Season with salt and pepper, a small sprinkle will do.
• Add half the meat, season with a pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Then pack down with a potato masher.In my original recipe and video, I place all the meat first. But in these new pictures, you can see that I'm layering the meat along with the rice.So half the meat now, and half later.
• Add all the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and pack down.
• Then top with half the rice, season with salt and pepper and flatten.
• Now we add the second half of the meat, season, and pack down.
• And finally, the second half of the rice. Season with salt and pepper, and pack down.
• Take a small saucer, place it face down on the rice (or use the back of a large spoon), and slowly pour all the stock in. This stops a gap/hole appearing in the rice as you're pouring the stock in. You also don't want to mess with the packed rice and stuff.
• Place the pot on the stovetop, turn the heat on high for 3 minutes to bring everything up to simmering point although you'll probably only see the edges bubbling. When you see the bubbles at the edges, move on to the next step.
• Put the lid on, turn the heat right down and cook for 45 minutes. After that time, if you think the rice isn't done, another 5-10 minutes should suffice.Take the saucepan off the hot hob and leave the rice to rest for 10 minutes before unveiling.
• Take a large plate or serving platter, place it over the pot. Holding the plate tightly against the saucepan, give it a gentle shake. Then slowly, ease the saucepan off the plate. In the video, this happens at around 12:15 minutes.Top with the nuts and parsley.
• If you packed the saucepan as mentioned, it shouldn't collapse. But if it does, no big deal, scatter with pine nuts and parsley and serve.
• Click here for my new recipe - Vegetable Maqluba.

MAKLOUBEH

Steps:

• Fry eggplant till golden brown in a frying pan with veggie oil, set aside.
• Fry chicken on high heat in a large pot in olive oil until brown on all sides and add salt, pepper, and Arabic spice(all spice,7 spice same thing). Just add by your eye no certain amount matters.
• Remove chicken from pot and add the slices onions, fry in the oil (same pot and same oil used for the chicken) until soft about 4 minutes and add chicken back in the pot.
• Fry all together for another 3 or 4 minutes and then add water, about a little more then half the pot.
• Keep the heat on max and add the chicken stock, the turmeric, about 1/2 teaspoon more of the allspice for more flavor and salt, add enough salt to taste, keep adding and tasting until you have the right flavour, then add the bay leaf and the cardamom pods.
• Cover and let it come to a boil then turn down to 6 or to medium for about 40 minutes.
• When it done drain the stock in other bowl or pot and put the chicken on a plate.
• Wash the rice and drain; do not soak.
• Add the chicken to the bottom of the same pot you used (no need to wash it), then add some rice over the chicken.
• Add half the eggplant over the rice (layering).
• Then add some more rice on top of the eggplant (layering).
• Add the rest of the eggplant and layer on the rest of the rice, push down on the food to make it all even and smooth.
• Now add the stock.
• Add the stock and use your pointing finger to know how much stock to put. When you dip your finger in the makloubeh and the tip of your finger touches the rice and the water to the first line on your finger, it is enough stock. We have three lines on our finger--the first line is telling you it's enough stock.
• Then cover and bring to a boil for about 6 to 8 minute.
• Then turn it to the lowest mark MIN until its ready, about 30 min to 40 minutes. Check with fork to see if rice is ready.
• When done, bring a large round serving dish. Put the dish on top of the pot and flip it over. Remove pot and add some toasted nuts (almonds, pine nut if you want).

MAHA SARSOUR'S MAQLUBA (UPSIDE-DOWN CHICKEN AND RICE)

Steps:

• Cut the eggplant into 1/2-inch-thick half-moons. Season well with salt, and let sit 30 minutes. Place the chicken in a large pot (a 10-inch, 5-quart size is ideal), and season well with salt and 1 teaspoon black pepper, ground cumin, cloves, cardamom pods and bay leaves (ideally, do this the day before). Pour 3 cups of boiling water over the rice. Soak for 10 minutes, then drain well.
• To the chicken, add the onion wedges, 1 tablespoon salt and 4 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, covered, over high heat, then turn down to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes. Drain the chicken, keeping the broth and discarding the onion and spices.
• Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering hot, then fry the carrots, in batches if necessary, turning occasionally until browned, about 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels, then season lightly with salt. Repeat with the potato, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with the cauliflower, about 7 minutes per batch. Finally, press the eggplant with paper towel until dry, then fry the eggplant in one layer until browned, about 4 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towels, but don't season. (If the eggplant is too oily, press on it with paper towels.)
• Pour out the oil, keeping 2 1/2 tablespoons in the pan. Heat it over medium-high heat and add the vermicelli, stirring until browned, about 2 minutes. Add the drained rice and cook, stirring, to dry it out, about 4 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, the turmeric, cinnamon, allspice, ground cloves, Sazón and garlic, and cook, stirring, until very fragrant.
• Place the chicken back in the pot, skin side down. Place the vegetables on top, then rice. Pour in 4 cups of the chicken broth. Press down on the rice; add more broth or water if needed to bring the liquid barely to the level of the rice. Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat, then turn it down to medium low. After 10 minutes, carefully stir just the rice to evenly combine the harder rice on top. Repeat after another 10 minutes. After a total of 30 minutes, the rice should be cooked, but not soft, and the liquid should be absorbed.
• Place a very large serving dish on top of the pot, then, protecting your hands (and maybe with a partner), invert the pot onto the dish in one smooth motion. If there is liquid seeping out, spoon it out or soak it up with paper towels. Let the pot rest at least 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a small pan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Fry the pine nuts, stirring constantly, until browned, about 1 minute. Drain on paper towels.
• Lift off the pot to reveal the maqluba, and scatter the pine nuts all over. Serve with yogurt and chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley on the side, seasoned with lemon, salt and olive oil.