One Hundred and One Mezze: 29. Shanklish Salad

This post and my previous one on shanklish were supposed to be one post but when I started writing I discovered I have a lot to say about shanklish. It is a delicious ingredient and almost unknown outside the Levant. It definitely deserved its own post.

Today's recipe is the best way to enjoy shanklish. It works great as a light supper dish or as a mezze. As I mentioned previously, shanklish is not a native cheese to Damascus but as time went by it became more and more popular. You can find this mezze dish served in some of the upper end restaurants around the city.

Here is my Shanklish Salad recipe:

One Shanklish ball
Small red onion (or few spring onions)
One tomato
Olive oil

Finely chop the tomato and the onion. Crumble the shanklish and mix. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil.

Serve with Arabic flat bread. This salad is eaten with bread like you do with hummus, mutabal and other dips.

Yogurt, Tahini or both?

Yogurt in Syria is used in a total different way to that of England. We use yogurt in its unprocessed form. We don't eat it as a desert or a snack and never sweet or mixed with fruits. Yogurt for Syrians is a savory ingredient that is served next to food or used as a base ingredient of many dishes. We use yogurt by the bucket load quite literally! Traditionally Damascenes bought their yogurt from local shops in small plastic buckets. These were reusable. You eat the yogurt, you take them back and get yourself a new one. Of course this way of buying yogurt is almost extinct these days and you now buy it in small plastic pots like the rest of the world.

Tahini is another essential ingredient in the Syrian kitchen. Actually it is one of my all time favourite ingredients. It adds a unique earthy note to food and marries beautifully with lamb and white fish.

Both tahini and yogurt are used to create a variety of sauces served on the side of Syrian dishes. This post aims to explore all the different combinations created from these two ingredients and the different ways to use them.


Tahini Sauce: (theneh طحينة)

This is a classic sauce served next to kebab, lamb shawerma and falafel. it works perfectly well with fried aubergine and fried cauliflowers.

Tahini 4tbsp
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Water

Add the tahini, lemon juice to a bowl and start mixing with a spoon. The mixture will become stiff and light in colour. Add a little water and mix again. Add the water small amount at a time until the mixture loosens to the consistency you want. It needs to be fairly loose but not water-runny. Add salt to taste.

You can add some crushed garlic if you are serving it with shawerma or similar type recipes.


Yogurt and Tahini sauce: (Laban wa theneh لبن و طحينة)

This combination is mainly used as a base of many Syrian dishes; Mutabal, Ful bi Laban, Fatteh to name a few.

I occasionally use this combination as a side sauce instead of the pure tahini sauce described above. It is easier to eat as yogurt adds a nice tangy flavour that balance the heaviness of the tahini. I always serve this version with Lahmeh bil saniyeh.

Greek style yogurt 300g

Tahini 3tbsp

Lemon

Salt

To make the sauce whisk together the yogurt and tahini. Add salt and lemon to taste. If the sauce is too thick, loosen with some water.

Taratour: (طرطور)

This sauce is the ideal complement to white fish cooked deep fried, grilled or roasted. One of my best childhood food memories was in a sea front restaurant in Tartous with a big plate of fried fish, Arabic bread and a bowel of Taratour, a perfect lunch.

To make taratour all you need is tahini sauce slightly thinner than usual and loads of chopped parsley.


Yogurt and cucumber: (Laban wa khiyar لبن و خيار)


Every country of the Levant and all the neighboring territories have their own version of the famous Tzatziki. This is the Syrian one. In its native countries Tzatziki is usually used as an accompaniment unlike the Western interpretation of serving it as a dip.

In Syria we serve Laban wa Khiyar as a side sauce for "dry" rice and Bulgar pilaf. By dry I mean dishes with the grains as the main ingredient without a vegetable stew on the side. Riz bi Bazalia (Peas rice pilaf) Riz bi Ful (Broad bean rice pilf) and Burgul bi Ful (Broad bean Bulgar pilaf) are some delicious examples.

Yogurt 300g
One cucumber
Salt
Lemon
Garlic one clove
Dry mint 1tsp

Peel and finely chop the cucumber. Add the yogurt, dry mint and crushed garlic. Mix well and add salt and lemon to taste. Thin the mixture with some water if required to get the right consistency.


Yogurt: (Laban لبن)

Yogurt can be served in its plain unprocessed form as an alternative to Tzatziki. It goes well with the same type of dishes but it work especially well with Mujadara and Maqluba (literally translated, Upside-down) an upside down rice aubergine and meat pilaf.


Yogurt and garlic sauce: (Laban wa toum لبن و توم)

This one is for the garlic lovers. We Syrians (and Lebanese) are not only used to the taste of raw garlic, we absolutely love it!

This sauce is served next to Mnazaleh bi aswad and couple of similar dishes made with fried minced lamb and pumpkin or courgettes.

Finally, yogurt and garlic can be used to make the classic Syrian pasta with yogurt.

Yogurt 300g
Garlic 2-3 cloves
Salt

Crush the garlic and mix in the yogurt with salt to taste.

Pomegranate molasses gone mainstream!

If you are of the foodie types you will know pomegranate molasses has been in vouge for quite a while. You see it every where nowadays; in cooking shows, newspaper reviews and food blogs. Despite that I thought this interest is confined to foodies and TV chefs until I saw it on a high street supermarket shelf in deepest whitest Essex. The last place on Earth to sell pomegranate molasses!

How much I miss Damascus!

For those who read my Kammun post, it is snowing in Damascus today.

Shanklish, Blue Cheese of The Levant

Shanklish is the only "blue" cheese of Syria and Lebanon. I say blue because the cheese is left to age and develop mould layer on the surface. I used quotation marks because the mould is then rinsed away then the cheese balls are dried and rolled in a herb crust.

Proper Shanklish making is a complicated lengthy process. It starts by turning milk into yoghurt. The yoghurt is placed in a large container and shaken continuously for a good period of time to separate the butter that is then skimmed away. This creates a thin skimmed yoghurt called Shenineh. The next step is to slow heat shenineh until it curdles. These curds are then drained in a cheese cloth for few hours to create Arisheh, a delicately flavoured crumbly white cheese. Arisheh is then salted generously and rolled into tennis-ball sized cheese balls. These are then dried in the sun for a week. Once dried shanklish balls are placed in airtight jars and left in the dark to mature. They will develop a mouldy layer on the surface. Once the desired aging time is reached the cheese balls are rinsed and dried to remove the mould. Shanklish balls are finished by rolling them in dried zaatar or thyme layer.

Each of these by-products mentioned above is an ingredient in its own right. Shenineh makes a light refreshing drink similar but lighter than Ayran (yoghurt drink for those of you who haven't tried it). Arisheh makes a wonderful breakfast dish drizzled with honey or cherry jam and served with warm bread.

Shanklish varies a lot in taste, texture and flavour depending on the length of the aging process. Fresh white shanklish needs only a week of aging. The longer shanklish is matured the darker and smellier it gets. Eating properly aged shanklish is a hard core sport for an elite group of hard core fans.

A common variation of the original is made by adding paprika and Aleppo peppers to Arisheh before it get rolled this will give shanklish orange pink colour. Flavoured shanklish is commonly rolled in Aleppo peppers rather than thyme.

Shanklish is not a native cheese to Damascus. It is very popular in coastal and mountainous areas especially around Tartous and Homs. Up til recent year, and by recent I mean when I was a child, it was not eaten in Damascus at all. The strong smell and the idea of aged mouldy cheese was off putting to most people. I vaguely remember as a child somebody giving us home made shanklish as a gift. It stayed in the fridge for a week or so before my mum chucked it in the bin untouched. Now getting older and wiser I grew to love shanklish. It has a wonderful unique flavour that I absolutely love.

Like I did people of Damascus grew to like shanklish. You can find it in most grocery shops around the city. It is not uncommon to see a man pushing a cart full of the stuff around the city narrow lanes or even farmer women selling their home made shanklish in the city streets.

Shanklish could be eaten as it is with nice piece of bread and some olive oil with tomato, cucumber and mint leaves on the side. I like to make it into a sandwich with some soft boiled eggs. I heard of some people frying it with eggs to make a flavoursome omelet, I never tried it this way. Finally the most common and best way to eat shanklish is to make it into a salad. This will be my next post.

In London you can buy shanklish from Green Valley on Edgware road or Damas Gate in Shepherds Bush.

If you want to read an excellent article on Shanklish go to Abu Fares blog. Abu Fares is a great writer, thinker, humanist and a champion of Tartous and everything related to Tartous including Shanklish.

Kammun

This post is a few days late but the winter hasn't even started properly and I am sure we will have many more cold days to come to enjoy this drink. For those outside the UK and don't know what I am talking about, we spent last week in knee-deep snow.

To many people, Syria is this Middle Eastern extremely hot place. While true at the height of summer winter is a complete different story. It comes sometimes as a great surprise when I tell people that we have snow in Syria, a fair bit of it on occasions. I think we get more snow in Damascus than we do in London. There is a difference though, we enjoy it a lot more back home.

Snow days in Damascus have their own great tradition. No sound minded child will go to school on a snow day. Children, teenagers and even university students will get their heavy jackets and gloves and head straight for snow fights. Syrian TV will stop its scheduled programs and broadcast live pictures from the city. Talj Talj (snow snow) song from Damascus favourite singer, Fairuz, playing repeatedly on TV to accompany pictures of snow covered streets and children posing with dodgy looking snowmen.



Winter season has of course its food tradition. In our household after a day of snow fight we always returned to hot warming bowel of Keshkeh. Other winter classics includes Tahini Pumpkin and Kebbeh Labnyeh. Few drinks do qualify for a winter drink category but Damascenes warm to one drink more than others, Kammun.

Kammun is the Arabic origin of the word cumin. It is the name of the spice and the name of the drink made with cumin. The drink is a favourite in a cold winter night. Although people make the drink at home it is most commonly consumed in cafes.

Here is hot to make a nice warm cup of Kammun:

Water 200mls
Ground Cumin 1tbsp
Salt 1/2 tsp (add more or less according to taste)
Lemon

In a pot, add the water, cumin and salt. Bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for few minutes. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon.

One Hundred and One Mezze: 28. Cheese Borak

Today's recipe is a must in any Damascene restaurant meal. It is an essential part of any meal you almost get served these by default, sometimes without even ordering them. To start your meal you will get served one of these and one Kibbeh Me'lyieh (Fried Kibbeh) along with the usual suspects of hummus, mutabal and fatoush.

For this recipe I used my mum super fast borak dough recipe. This dough recipe is only good to be fried as it will come out crisp and flaky. If you want oven baked borak you will be better of using puff pastry but you need to roll it really thin so you don't end up with cheese puffs.

I made my borak in the traditional rectangular shape. Not the most aesthetic but diffidently the most traditional.

Here is my Cheese Borak recipe:

Flour 2 cups

Boiling water 3/4 cup

Vegetable oil 1/4 cup

Salt 1 tsp

For the filling:

White cheese 200g

Chopped Parsley 30g

Sesame seeds (optional)

Black sesame seeds (optional)

Black pepper

Start by preparing the filling. Crumble your white cheese and mix with the rest of the ingredients. You can use any type of Arabic white cheese. I usually use Nabulsi cheese. It has a great subtle flavour. If you don't have access to Arabic white cheese then you can try my alternative mix of Feta and Mozzarella.

In a mixing bowl add all the dough ingredients and start mixing with a spoon. Be careful not to burn your fingers with the boiling water. Using hot water allows all the ingredients to come together surprisingly easy. Once mixed into a dough start working it with your hands. The dough is ready to work with almost immediately.

Roll the dough very thinly and cut into rectangles. Spoon some of the cheese mix, fold the dough and press the edges to seal it. You can use a pizza or a ravioli cutter to make the edges pretty (unlike mine!).

Deep fry in vegetable oil, drain on a kitchen towel and serve warm.