donderdag 10 september 2015

MENA Cooking Club: Qatari Margoog

I am SO excited to announce that this month at MENA Cooking Club we are visiting Qatar! So basically, I am staying home this month! ;-) Our host this month is Carrie from Witchy Kitchen

Doha is the capital of Qatar and has been my home for the past 2+ years. Here you can see its famous skyline, as seen from the Museum of Islamic Arts.

I`m going on my third year in Qatar and this place has definitely grown on me. There is so much to say about this tiny country on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula that I don`t really know where to start... I guess if you want to know a little more about Qatar: stick around on my blog and check out some of the previous posts I wrote about my experiences here and here. Also stay tuned for more in the future! 

But I haven`t really written much about Qatari cuisine... Unfortunately Google is not very helpful in this aspect: there`s very little information out there on Qatari food... Only Qtips offers some insight in this video. But that makes it all the more fun in my opinion! I fondly remember the first Qatari dish I tried out myself. It`s called saloonah and ever since it`s been a huge hit in our family! (I`ll be sharing my recipe for saloonah too, in shaa Allah.) With MENA Cooking Club this month I tried out a new main dish and again it`s definitely a recipe and dish to remember! 

The original recipe I used did seem quite difficult to me in the beginning as it adds some kind of wheat made dough balls. Eventually I found several recipes with all different interpretations to the wheat addition: some added dough balls of wheat mixed with water, others rolled out the dough balls first into some kind of tortillas and another recipe just added plain tortillas. As our Lulu (local supermarket) didn`t have my favorite tortillas in stock and I couldn`t really wrap my head around the dough balls, I decided to think out of the box and instead I used... Egyptian bread. So here`s my margoog with an Egyptian twist. :-)


Serves: 4 
Ingredients - Checklist: 
O 1 kg lamb pieces (I prefer with bones)
O 3-4 cups of water 
O 1 tsp salt
O 1 tsp black pepper
O 1/2 tsp cinnamon
O 1 tbs cumin 
O 1 dried black lemon 
O 2 tbs olive oil
O 2 red onions, diced
O 4 cloves garlic, diced 
O 1 green bell pepper, diced
O 3 `kousa` (small zucchini), cut into long rectangular pieces
O 3 small aubergines, cut into long rectangular pieces
O 2 large carrots, cut into long rectangular pieces
O 1 can tomato pieces (400 g)
O 1 handful of fresh cilantro/coriander leaves, chopped 
O 1 Egyptian bread 
Preparations: 
  • Heat olive oil in a large pot.
  • Add onion and garlic, saute until onion becomes transparent and garlic turns golden.
  • Add the lamb pieces and bake on both sides. 
  • Add tomato pieces, salt, black pepper and cumin. 
  • Add 3-4 cups of water. (Or until the meat is completely covered.)
  • Add kousa, aubergines and carrots. 
  • Bring to a boil, then add cinnamon and dried black lemon. 
  • Add bell pepper. 
  • Bring to medium heat, cover and let simmer for about an hour. 
  • Cut the Egyptian bread in 2 halves and place them under a hot grill for 2-3 minutes or until the bread becomes crispy. 
  • Let the bread cool. Once cool, break the bread in small pieces. 
  • After the `saloonah` (The mixture of meat and vegetables) has been on the stove for about an hour, add the small pieces of bread.
  • Let simmer for another half hour. 
  • Add chopped cilantro before serving. 

Enjoy! :-) 

2 opmerkingen:

  1. How nice to have someone who lives in Qatar this month! You're right that there's not a lot online about Qatari cuisine, maybe you can help us ☺️ Your dish looks delicious! I wasn't really sure about the handling of the dough either, that was smart to do it with bread. Thanks for participating!

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  2. Your margoog looks delicious and as Carrie said you definitely should share more Qatari recipes with the world.

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