Syria: Tabbouleh

I figured a good tabbouleh would be another nice accompaniment for the kababs. This simple salad is basically a combination of chopped, fresh herbs with some tomatoes, bulgur wheat and scallions. Bulgur wheat is made from durum wheat and has a light nutty flavor. I think it has a consistency like oatmeal.

For this one I once again turned to the Barefoot Contessa for guidance. I thought her tabbouleh recipe is kind of heavy on the bulgur wheat, but you could easily fix that by not using so much.

I also used the veggie chopper again for this recipe to chop the herbs. It smelled amazing grating the mint!

Lebanon: Kibbeh

Lebanon's national dish, kibbeh, is pretty similar to the kabab's from Iran. The difference is the kibbeh has bulgur wheat mixed in with the meat.

And what do you know, one of my favorite celebrity chef's Emeril Lagasse actually has a kibbeh recipe. Who would have thought? The recipe is actually for kibbeh with caramelized onions and some sort of pomegranate molasses, but I just stuck with the kibbeh. Remember. Keepin' it simple.

I'm still trying to decide which one I like better - the kabab or the kibbeh. The tumeric in the kabab gave it a really nice and different flavor. The Emeril kibbeh had a variety of other spices, including all spice and cinnamon. The bulgur wheat gives it a firmer texture. Hm...

Well I'm pretty hungry after all this cooking and blogging. Now I just need to decide what to feed myself. I think I've got my meals for the week covered.

And yes, I know the kibbeh also look funny. Can't we all just see past appearances?

Israel: Israeli salad

What drew me to Israel this week was one of the national dishes, an Israeli salad. I was tempted to hold off on Israel for another, less ambitious cooking weekend so I could make the other national dish - falafel. But in the end, for simplicity's sake, I went with the salad.

A traditional Israeli salad is basically cucumbers and tomatoes diced very finely. The dicing is what makes this combo distinct to the country. Apparently the ability to dice the vegetables so finely is the mark of a truly wonderful kibbutz cook.

The vegetables are dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, parlsey and green onions. I used this as a guide to come up with a very, very basic recipe.

Now, since I'm no master kibbutz cook, I relied on my veggie chopper to make this dish as authentic as possible. The veggie chopper was a birthday gift from my sister last year. She fell in love with it at a Williams-Sonoma cooking class on making salsa. The beauty of the veggie chopper is that you have total control over how finely your vegetables get chopped, moreso than with a food processor. It's manually operated with a cord that when you pull, turns the blades and chops the veggies. I love it for dicing onions. For this recipe I also used the veggie chopped to cut the parsley and scallions.

Ingredients:

1 hothouse cucumber

2 tomatoes

About 2 tbsps. fresh lemon juice

About 2 tbsps. olive oil

Salt

Pepper

3 tbsps. chopped flat-leaf parsley

3 tbsps. chopped scallions

What to do:

Dice the cucumbers and tomatoes using preferred method. Add lemon juice and olive oil and toss. Then add diced parsley and scallions. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Iran: Kabab

So the Wiki list of national dishes has two variations of kababs for Iran, chelow and nan-e.

A chelow kabab is a simple meal that basically consists of a meat kebab served with steamed rice. Don't be fooled into limiting your idea of a kabab to hunks of meat and vegetables on a stick. A traditional kebab can also be a log-shaped meat ball of sorts. The mixture used to mold the shape is usually made up of the meat and spices. You can stuff this kabab into a pita for a tasty sandwhich. The nan-e kabab is basically the same kind of thing, but served with flatbread instead of rice.

I decided to go with the meat log variety to go with my side dishes (and the leftover tzatziki from greek night).

I found this kabab recipe on some random Web site called Persian City. It calls for either lamb or ground beef. I went with lamb. The tumeric is where it's at on this one. I also made mind in the over and skipped the tomatoes.

I know they look kind of funny, but are quite tasty. Shove them in a pita with some tzatiki and the Israeli salad and you'll never know the difference.

Middle Eastern madness!

You didn't think I'd settle to close the weekend off with just one country, did you? Nope. And today I thought I'd try my luck dipping into the wine bag of fun for a surprise cooking adventure.

The lucky draw this time out was Iran, and a quick consultation with the Wiki list of national dishes revealed that one of this country's national dishes is the kebab. Easy enough.

I also figured that this would be a good opportunity to pick up some of my slack and whip up a couple of side dishes from other nearby countries.

So I came up with a pretty impressive Middle Eastern menu with the national dishes from four countries: Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

Recipes to follow with each individual country.

Like my affection for Greek food, I've also always been a big fan of cooking from middle eastern countries. It's light, seems to be healthy and now that I've made it I can say it's surprisingly simple. The key is using good ingredients.

And in case you're wondering about the picture, that's me in Israel. Somewhere hiking in the Negev Desert. I went on a trip with college newspaper editors. We swam in the Dead Sea, rode camels through the desert and even visited a kibbutz. Talk about a fun vacation location, if you can get past the terrorism. Our tour bus drove very quickly past the borders of Lebanon and Syria.

So three weeks into my little project that's 10 countries down, 193 to go...