Iraqi Biryani!

Biryani is typically considered a very South Asian dish, however the term "Biryani" is derived from the Persian word "Beryan" and not many people know that the dish itself originated from Persia. I love this dish because I believe that no Biryani dish is ever made the same, every culture has their own rendition and today I'm going to show you how my family typically makes Biryani and what goes into it that makes it tastes so amazing.

I normally don't like to post specific ingredients or certain measurements, unless you're baking you don't need to follow a specific list of instruction. To be a good cook, you must learn to cook with all of your senses and you have to be independent on what YOU choose to put in your food. If you don't like dried lemon, don't put it in there, If you like a lot of pepper, by all means go ahead. After all, you're the one going to be eating this food. 

However today I will be posting my ingredients, but you can choose to add or omit anything you like.

Ingredients! 

Potatoes
Onions
Mushrooms
Canned Peas
Basmati Rice
Orzo Pasta
Vermicelli Noodles
Dried cranberries (or Raisins)
Biryani Spice
Curry

Dried Lemon
Turmeric
Cumin
Salt
Pepper (or Cayenne)

Start by prepping your ingredients, I don't just put everything in bowls because it looks nice, I actually make sure to prep everything before I put my hot pan on the stove, I want to have everything right next to me when I start cooking, that way the onions wont burn as I'm busy chopping the potatoes. 

Speaking of Potatoes just like I showed you in my Eggplant Penne Recipe soaking your Eggplant in warm water and salt ensures that your Eggplant doesn't turn brown or mushy, the same works with Potatoes and it also removes some of the excess starch that really doesn't taste pleasant.

I don't really care too much for Mushrooms, but my Mother loves Mushrooms and so I made sure to roughly chop and add a whole box into the Biryani just for her.

These are the spices I'll be using today, I wont be adding much Cayenne pepper though, maybe just a pinch because Iraqi's tend to hate spicy food (they can't take the heat) and if your planning to use Cardamom make sure you use a coffee grinder to grind the Cardamom into a powder, if you can't grind the Cardamom do NOT use it, nothing is worse than getting a piece of Cardamom in your mouth while your eating and not using it wont make much of a difference in your dish.

Start with sauteing your onions in a large pan, My mother prefers to season her Biryani in the end. But I believe you should take the time to season every element of your dish so that when it all comes together, I start by gradually adding spices to the pan. 

After your Onions are transparent throw your Mushrooms in the pan too and make sure to stir everything in the pan until Mushrooms are golden.

Lastly add your Peas into the pan, they really don't need very much cooking time and so toss them in the pan until their warm and then sprinkle a bit of seasonings on top and throw your mix into a bowl.

Normally I make sure to wash the pan before cooking potatoes, but I was cooking up rice and making other dishes at the same time, so I wasn't thinking properly. If you have the patience to stand there and fry potatoes, then do so.

However I ain't got time for that so I just add water and some spices to my potatoes and let them simmer until they were a bit soft. 

Completely optional, but in a separate pot (or pan) make sure to boil some Orzo, it's shaped like rice but it's more of a pasta, so cook it with a little salt water and olive oil. Do the same with Vermicelli noodles. 

After you've finished cooking everything, add everything to a bowl (or colander) I use a colander with a pot underneath that way any excess oil will drip through the colander and go into the pot and that helps with making your dish less greasy. Then throw in your non-cooked ingredients, for me Raisins are just way too sweet and so I prefer using Cranberries because they're more tart.

This is a layering method that I've learned from my Dad, you add rice first, your Biryani mix, and so on so fourth until you're out of rice and filling. This helps get everything evenly mixed.

This is how it should look at the very end and then make sure to cover the pot and let the Biryani completely cook on low. Afterwards before serving take a spoon and mix the pot all together. 

This is how your dish should look in the end, you could always add shredded chicken or beef, I decided not to use chicken since I made Teshribah to accompany this Biryani!

I hope you try this recipe and as always enjoy!

Eggplant Penne Pasta!

If you ever find yourself needing to quickly cook something for your friends or family, then pasta is the perfect choice because it's cheap, quick, and easy to make! 

The great thing about Pasta is that it's so versatile that you can literally do anything to it, you can add whatever vegetable, any sauce, and it will still taste extremely good. So today I'm choosing to put Eggplant! All you need for this dish is a Pasta of your choice, Sauce of your choice, Garlic, and Eggplant!

You can use any type of Eggplant you want, I'm choosing to use the traditional dark Eggplant that you can find at any market, you can leave the skin on, however I'm choosing to remove some of the skin off and you should also make sure to dice the eggplant evenly.

Before sauteing you're Eggplant, make sure to to soak your Eggplant in salt and water in a bowl, this will remove most of the fluid from the Eggplant and that will ensure that your Eggplant doesn't turn brown or mushy. 

Since this is a meatless dish, I'm choosing to put a 1 clove of Garlic because adding a little Garlic can make your dish taste very meaty even though there is no meat in the dish. So make sure to chop your Garlic very finely because NO ONE wants to bite down on a huge piece of garlic. 

Now get your pan ready by drizzling a bit of Olive Oil and letting it heat up before throwing your Garlic in the pan, it's good to saute your Garlic first since it can flavor the Olive Oil as well as anything you cook in the pan. 

Now add your diced Eggplant into the pan and stir it around until it reaches a golden color. Don't multitask, you'll end up over browning your Eggplant.

In the meantime your water should be coming to a boil and a good tip I learned is to generously salt your water, Pasta doesn't have much of a flavor and whatever you add to the water will flavor your Pasta.

Today I'm choosing to work with a Penne Pasta, it takes awhile to cook since the texture can be a little tough, but it's really good when making dishes especially since it soaks up the sauce and the flavors-- need I say more?

 Pay attention, cause this right here is super important, after I managed to cook my Eggplant, I went into the fridge and realized that we had no Pasta sauce of any kind! But that's okay because if you have Tomato sauce or Tomato paste, then you're good because with a little Paste and a lot of Spices, no one will even tell the difference between the Store bought sauce and Last minute sauce. 

Into the pan, throw in a tbs of Tomato paste and a half (or whole) can of Tomato sauce, then ladle some of that boiling pasta water into the pan and allow the sauce to simmer, to combat the Tomato flavor start adding some of your favorite spices like Oregano, Basil, Black Pepper, and Salt. 

After your Pasta is finished, drain it into a colander and a good trick is to drizzle a bit of Olive Oil into the Pasta to keep it from sticking. 

Then throw your Pasta right into your sauce pan and start mixing until it's very well combined. 

Now serve your pasta and make sure to garnish it with some herbs or some shredded cheese, whatever you like and don't forget to enjoy!

Iraqi Chicken Soup "Teshribah"

So this morning my younger brother woke up extremely sick and asked if I could make him Soup or "Teshribah" as most Iraqi's would call it, which is basically a flavorful chicken broth based soup made with very few ingredients and uses little to no time at all to make.

The bases of this Soup or Teshribah is Chicken or Lamb, Onions, Potatoes, and Chickpeas, however I wont be using any Potatoes or Chickpeas. I'll be sticking with a very simple base of Chicken, Broth, Onion, and Vermicelli noodles that i'll be adding at the end.

For this particular batch of soup, I've decided to use cut up Chicken thighs because the bones of the Chicken add more flavor to the broth. 

One whole chopped Spanish Onion (or any Onion of your choosing.)

Vermicelli noodles

and spices such as Turmeric, Curry, Cumin, Salt, and Pepper. 

Dried lemon (ground or whole) is also highly recommend, You can try finding dried lemon at Indian/Middle Eastern stores, however if you can't find it at a store near you, then I wouldn't worry too much about it.

To get started on The Soup you must first saute your veggies in Olive oil, I wont be using any veggies today because I'm sticking with the basic soup and so I'll only be Sauteing my onions, but you can choose to put any veggies you'd like ex: Celery, Carrots, Zucchini, Potatoes, etc.

After your chicken has developed some color, make sure to add your spices, I don't typically follow certain measurements however I believe that a little goes along way and so it's best to add no more than a tbs of all your spices with the exception of salt and pepper, a good tip my Mother gave me is to wait until the very end to add your salt that way you wont end up over salting your food.

Another good tip for measuring is using a typical soup bowl to measure out how much water you'll be adding, ask yourself how many bowls will probably be served? and then fill the pot with the amount of bowls that will be served using the soup bowl. However, you may need to refill the pot later on because water typically gets absorbed very quickly and you want to have a good watery consistency for soup. 

I just wanted to talk about Vermicelli noodles and why I chose to use this type of noodle rather than egg noodles which is used in the typical American chicken soup, Vermicelli noodles are more thin and typically less starchy then egg noodles which can really thicken the soup and like I said we need more of a broth rather then a thick stew, so that's why we use this type of noodle, it's also best to add it towards the end when your chicken is cooked because its thin and small, it doesn't need very much cooking time. 

If Teshribah will be your only meal for the day, then I also recommend adding Bulgur Kubah, it's Bulgur wheat dough stuffed with ground beef, parsley, pine nuts, and onion. I like to help my Mother make a huge batch of this type of Kubbah and then we freeze it, whenever I'm not in the mood to cook for everyone, I just pull out a few and let them thaw out for awhile before adding them into my soups. 

After an hour of your Teshribah boiling away on medium-low, make sure to check to see if the chicken is fully cooked? If so, taste the broth to check if you need to add more spices and if you feel like it's finished, serve it in a soup bowl and eat it like so. Iraqi's typically eat Teshribah with Pita bread, Rice, or Samoon and I can't describe how amazing it is... 

I hope that you'll try this very traditional yet simple Iraqi dish and please feel free to comment and suggest any type of dish you'd like to see.

Hello!

I thought I should introduce myself and a share a little about myself before I started posting on here! My name is Walaa, I'm 21 years old and I'm currently in school studying to be a Registered Nurse. Both my parents are from Iraq, but I've lived in the United States my whole life. I have many hobbies and many interests, but my passion for cooking came to me when I was just 8 years old, my Mother and my Aunt were chopping up Cabbage in the kitchen and I begged them to allow me to help them except they said no because I was 8 years old and I was never allowed to use a knife, but nevertheless I waited until both my Mother and Aunt left the kitchen and I picked up the knife and I managed to chop a whole cabbage on my own without any help.

After that, I pretty much felt invincible, I felt like I could do anything-- except of course my Mother was still very adamant I stayed out of the kitchen and so I pretty much had to practice cooking in secret, but the most exciting moments came when my Dad would ask me to make him tea and I jumped at every opportunity because I felt honored that he would bestow such a responsibility on me, not really realizing that he only asked because he didn't feel like doing it himself... However 13 years later he refuses to drink tea unless I'm the one who's made it for him.

Fast forward, I learned to cook a lot of dishes and even creating  a lot of my own renditions. I spent (and still do) hours watching the Food Network and cooking shows, I learned how to make my own bread, I learned how to cook a whole chicken, I learned how to make my own hummus and wrap my own grape leaves, I also never limited myself to cooking one certain type of cuisine, I love cooking Italian food, Asian food, Mexican food, Middle Eastern food, and the typical American food.

It wasn't until last year though that I really discovered my love for cooking Vegan food and more specifically taking very Middle Eastern dishes and turning them into Healthy Vegan dishes, which I really think my Vegan sister appreciates and lately, she's been asking me a lot for my recipes which made me realize that I've never written any of my recipes down, they're all in my head and so I created this Blogger as a way to comply all the recipes I've ever created and cooked.

However, I've also decided that I'll be posting a lot of my life hacks that have made my life a lot easier, things like organization, cleaning, design, and money saving. So expect a lot of those tips as well! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and hopefully, overtime I can get better at posting recipes and blogging.