Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Middle Eastern Style Recipe (Mahshi Malfouf محشي ملفوف)

Stuffed cabbage leaves are universally loved!

As many countries attribute it to their cuisine, I decided to try to find the origin of stuffed cabbage rolls. I did a google search and WOW…..you won’t believe how many countries insist that stuffed cabbage is THEIR DISH! Some forums even have heated discussions on the subject! So I settled that finding the exact origin is a lost cause and agree to the fact that stuffed cabbage leaves are very, very, very, very popular across the Middle East, Balkan countries, Eastern Europe, Armenia, Finland and Sweden.

Arabs call stuffwed cabbage “Mahshi Malfouf”. “Mahshi” means stuffed and “Malfouf” has a double meaning of ‘cabbage’ and ‘rolled’. Turks and Armenians name them “Dolma”. Poles call them “Gołąbki” meaning ‘little pigeons’ while Czechs and Slovaks refer to them as “Holubky”. They are known as “Sarma” to Serbs, Croatians and Bulgarians and “Sarmale” to Romanians. Swedes and Danes call them “Kåldolmar” while in Finland they are known as “kaalikääryle”. Whatever their name, stuffed cabbage rolls are the epitome comfort food!

I found it strange that stuffed cabbage rolls are popular in Sweden and Finland. All the other countries are close to each other, while these two are so far away. So how did cabbage rolls reach their cuisine?

In 1709, Charles XII of Sweden lost the Battle of Poltave against the Russians and fled to Moldavia which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. There, he spent two years in exile trying to convince the Ottoman Empire to help him defeat the Russians after which he returned to Sweden. Since he had borrowed considerable amounts of money from Ottoman creditors to finance his wars, they followed him to Sweden and during this time stuffed cabbage rolls were introduced in Sweden and from there to neighboring countries.

Cabbage rolls consists of cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling that traditionally is based around meat and rice and seasoned with a variety of seasoning. There are also popular vegetarian adaptations. The rolled cabbage leaves are then cooked by either baking, simmering or steaming. The sauce that the rolls are cooked in, or served with, is the distinctive factor that varies widely between the different cuisines. Also some cuisines use fresh softly cooked leaves for wrapping while others use pickled leaves.

In the Middle East “Mal-fouf” dishes are very popular. We use cabbage leaves, vine leaves, and Swiss chard leaves for rolling. The stuffing can include meat or not. The districting factor in our version is the spices we use and the lemony sauce. The Armenia version, that my grandmother used to prepare, is also lemony but much more so than this version.

Creamy Body Wash Recipe

My husband travels a lot!! For the past two years he has been on and off the planes more than he did his entire life!! I used to collect the small soaps as souvenirs to display in the bathroom, so he will bring me small soaps from every trip. Now I have such a collection, that  they don’t fit in any display basket! Action was called for!

I started using them, but they are so small that in a few days you end with up with an unusable soap and in the trash it goes!  So I decided to google what can they be used for. Have I told you lately what a good and likable friend Mr. Google is?  It is amazing what you can learn from the internet!

As soon as I started googling I entered into a world that I didn’t know existed!!! Did you know that it is very simple and CHEAP to do your own hand and body soap??  I didn’t! I was content buying my expensive body wash! 

So I started looking for what to do with my sample soaps and in the process discovered a gold mine! I discovered how to prepare my own Dove Body Wash! There are a lot of recipes out there and the variation of the water used to prepare the body soap is huge, but all agree that the water used with the Dove soap is on the lower end.

So far I have prepared this creamy body wash twice. The first time the body wash was too thick for our liking but the second time with some adaptations to the recipe it was great; not too thick nor thin!!!  And, I not only doubled it, but quadrupled it! I can guarantee you that I will be preparing this a lot in the future and experimenting with different soaps and scents. 

Yeah, I know, I showed you my picture of all my mini soaps and you thought that is what I will be preparing! I did end up preparing a hand wash with them and we are using it as I am writing this post but I still haven’t nailed down the exact portion of soap to water that I like so that post will have to wait. What I discovered from the three times I cooked liquid soap is that there is a big difference between using the Dove creamy soap bars that contain about 1/4 moisturizer and the other soap bars. The creamy ones need much less water.

Tips: Vegetable Carving for Everyday

Food carving and garnishing is a great way to notch-up your dishes and give then a nice, appealing, and professional look.

Food carving is the art of carving vegetables or fruits to form beautiful objects and shapes. There are different techniques for carving food, some elaborative and artistic, while others simple and easy yet beautiful.  No matter the technique, the final result is an attractive dish! 

Although the exact origin of food carving is disputed, all acknowledge that it came from East Asia and has been practiced in Japan, China and Thailand for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Nowadays, food carving is gaining worldwide appreciations especially as beautifully carved vegetables and fruits are travelling through the viral net across countries and continents.

Today, I am happy to introduce you to my friend Selena, a talented artist and fruit carving blogger from Russia. We thought it would be a great idea to do a guest post on each others blog as a way to introduce our reader's to a whole new world of art and flavors.

Mish Recipe

My grandmother - may her soul rest in peace - was the greatest cooker you could ever meet! As a kid, I have fond memories of her and the family gatherings at her house. I especially have warm memories of my grandmother’s kitchen and the tasty food that she used to prepare for us.

I can still remember my excitement once the summer break started because I knew I would spend longer periods at her house! As soon as school finished, I used to rush home to pack my clothes and head to her house! During the summer, all the family will meet at my grandparents house on Thursday evenings. My uncles and aunts with their husbands, all my cousins! The house will be filled with the smell of lovely food, loud laughter’s and the voice of us kids running all over the house.

I remember that as soon as we entered the house, we would kiss my grandmother and head straight towards the kitchen in pursuit of the Mish Jar! For us, the kids, Mish was the optimum prize… Mish sprinkled with some olive oil and dipped with toasted pita bread!!! It wouldn’t matter if we were hungry or full, the calling of the Mish was irresistible.

Mish is a dish that hails from Jaffa in Palestine. Jaffa is the hometown of my grandmother and the place where she learnt how to prepare Mish from her mother, who in turn learned how to prepare it from her mother. My mother will tell me that in the old days, her mother prepared mish using homemade white cheese soaked in milk and homemade green chili sauce. On special occasions my grandmother would prepare her entirely homemade version if Mish. It tasted amazing, the homemade cheese had a special unbeatable flavor!

Just like my grandmother learned to prepare Mish from her mother and grandmother, she taught us – the grandchildren - how to prepare Mish. One day I will teach my children how to prepare this very old traditional dish passed down through generations.

The portion below is large, so halve the ingredients for a smaller portion.  

Tips: How to get Crispy French Fries

Is there a kid, or an adult, out there who doesn’t enjoy a plate of crispy golden French fries sprinkled with salt and dipped in katchup? 

It is funny that French Fries, considered by many to be among the most popular foods in the world, is quite a recent dish. For the popularity of potatoes didn’t spread until the last two centuries! Some stories even say that many parts of the western world, up until 300 years ago, didn’t consider potatoes to be edible.  

Even though frying potatoes is quite easy, many people find it difficult to prepare crispy potatoes - or French fries as we call them - from fresh potatoes, so they buy ready-made frozen potato fries which probably contain unhealthy additives! 

Preparing crispy French fries at home is not difficult, just follow these few steps and tips to get crispy French fries every time.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe

I recently received a request from a fan of my Arabic blog (www.fattoush.me) asking for the recipe of sweetened condensed milk.

I personally use sweetened condensed milk a lot. One of the things that bother me the most when I am cooking or baking is finding I ran out of stock of an ingredient I need or that it is expired. I hate having to rush to the nearest supermarket to fetch it! So years ago, I did some research, and luckily found that there are quite some items that you can substitute or do yourself at home. Sweetened condensed milk, is one of the ingredients that you can easily prepare.  

The recipe for preparing sweetened condensed milk is quite basic and easy. It takes no more than five minutes, meaning faster that rushing to the supermarket (YEAY). Plus, the cost for preparing Sweetened Condensed Milk it at home is cheaper than buying it.

The recipe below yields about 11/3 cup of sweetened condensed milk, about the same quantity as is in one can.

Note: if you are using the sweetened condensed milk to sweeten your tea, you can opt to reduce the fat content by reducing the butter called for in the recipe. However, if you are using the condensed milk for preparing a dessert, examine the recipe you want to prepare before deciding if you want to reduce the butter or not.