Weekend Breakfast

In the traditional Syrian households, kitchen is the woman territory. Dad brings the food, mum cooks the food. I like to believe that this family module is changing. More and more family are breaking this rigid structure, may be very slowly but continuously. May be it is just my liberal brain convincing me that things are changing. I don't know!

Regardless of how traditional, liberal, backward or progressive a family is, two meals remain the father duty. First is, no surprises there, barbecue. Lighting a huge fire, grilling big pieces of meat and filling the place with smoke brings the cave man out of all of us men. We just love it.

The second father's specialty is Friday's breakfast. Friday as many of you know is the day of rest for Muslims so the weekend across all of the Arabic and Islamic countries will be Friday with either Thursday or Saturday. In Syria people will have a lie-in on a Friday morning and the breakfast will be served in late morning, more like a brunch, before people head for Friday's prayer around midday. The Friday's meal will feature the usual breakfast items olives, white cheese and labneh. But it will not be a proper weekend breakfast if it didn't include Hummus Fatteh or Ful Mudamas.

Ful is Arabic for Fava beans or braod beans whichever way you want to call them. Ful Mudamas is a vegetarian warm broad bean salad dish eaten as a filling breakfast or a nice supper. Although Ful Mudamas is the official name of the dish we hardly ever use this name. We simply refer to it as a generic Ful or we call it by the name of its two variations, Ful bi Laban (youghurt Ful) made with a youghrt sauce or Ful bi Ziet (oil ful)which looks more like a salad and uses more olive oil.

For this recipe you can use home cooked dry broad beans as in my Ful Nabit post but to be honest with you the skins remains tough unless you cook them for long time with plenty with Sodium Bicarb. You wouldn't do that in Syria and you will buy your beans ready cooked from the Ful and Hummus shop. Here in London you can buy tinned ful. There is a huge variety in any Middle Eastern supermarket. Some of the tinned ful comes in a variety of flavours and different Middle Eastern recipes. I like to buy a plain ful and chickpeas tin and I do the flavouring myself.


Here is my Ful bi Laban recipe:

Ful (or Ful and Chickpeas) tin
One large tomato
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Greek style yoghurt 200g
Tahini 2-3 tbsp
Lemon
Salt
Parsley
Paprika
Olive oil

Heat the beans with water in a pot or simply empty the can contents into a bowl, cover and microwave for two minutes. Drain the beans and let cool down . They need to be warm but not too hot as the yoghurt will curdle.

Mix the youghrt, tahini, crushed garlic, salt and squeeze of a lemon and mix together. The mixture will stiffen because of the tahini. Add a little bit of water at a time and whisk. You need a fairly loose consistency. Adjust the quantities according to taste. I like more tahini and less lemon but try till you get the taste you like.

Chop the tomato and add to the yoghurt sauce. Add the warm beans and mix together. Transfer to a large bowl or individual portions.

Decorate with paprika, chopped parsley and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Serve with warm bread, a quartered onion and some pickles.