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.

Hummus recipe

Hummus is probably the most well known Arabic appetizers! The fame of this popular Middle Eastern dish has spread all over the globe. It’s famous to the point that if you do a simple google search, you will see all sorts of adaptations to this dish, from adding roasted red peppers to curry!

Most of these international recipes call for using canned chickpeas. However, the traditional way for preparing hummus uses dried chickpeas.  Today, I would like to share with you the traditional way for preparing this cosmopolitan dish, the way our grandmothers and before them their grandmothers prepared it! Besides being much cheaper, using dried chickpeas is much healthier as you avoid all the harmful chemical additives!

Hummus is delicious for breakfast along with falafel and foul mudamas and pickled green olives (click for recipe). Hummus is also yummy with grilled meat and chicken.  In addition to it’s great taste, Hummus is rich in zinc, phosphorus, iron and copper. It strengthens the immune system, our memory, bones and teeth. It also contributes to the building of heart, brain, muscle, and kidney tissue cells. Hummus prevents the buildup of cholesterol in the blood vessels, regulates blood sugar levels, and is a great antioxidant. It is also useful for those who suffer from the formation of kidney stones.