Potato Omelet.

By Za



Alright!! Potatoesssss!!! 
Guys this is one of my favourite dishes!! it's delish and super easy to make!! but YUMMY!! 

Many people think Algerian eat Couscous like Middle Japanese eat rice! Well, small correction.. That is not the case. We don't eat Couscous everyday or every other day.. not even 3 times a week. The dish that Algerians might eat 3 times a week or wouldn't mind eating everyday (which is not the case, but let's say very often) is Chips Omelet 



Yes, I couldn't emphasize on it enough! Most Algerians wouldn't dare say no to this simple yet delicious dish. 

I don't own a good gas cooker. I've got two electric hot plates, that are far from being cutting edge. 
So, frying food isn't the best option one would pick with what I have... but I am Algerian.. how can I possibly live without Chips Omelet!

Well, if its not fried, its boiled. 

So get: 

• 3 medium potatoes or 4
• 3 or 4 eggs, 
• a big handful of parsley. 
• Salt 
• Oil
• 1/2 tbsp butter

Preparation: 

Peel and dice your potatoes, then bring to to boil. (don't forget to salt the water) 

Once boiled, drain them. 

In a big pan, put a table spoon of oil and 1/2 tbsp of butter. 

One heated, put your boiled potato dice in the pan. 

Break (or beat if you want) the eggs and add them to the potatoes. 

PS: DO NOT STIR . Just give the pan a little shake so the the eggs spread evenly. 

add the chopped parsley. 

salt a little and cover. 

When the eggs harden a bit, only then, can you stir, well not literally stir, with a flat plastic or wooden spatula bring the mixture slowly upide down. it's better than way so that your potatoes dont get mushy and all broken. 


Serve with Mortadella, or black olives, spring rolls too go nicely with it. 

Bsahetkom - Bon appetit- Enjoy 

 :) 

A regular Spaghetti Bolognese

By Za


Hello there! 

Do you feel like speghetti? with something like, no white cream or mixed sauce? 
Okay, let's go for bolognere. Got your tomatoes and minced meat? let's go 


So, we'll need:

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 + 1/2 tomato. 
• Minced meat of your choice (beef, lamb, mutton..etc) 
• 1 onions 
• 4 Garlic cloves. 
• Origano (optional,) 
• Cloves (optional)
• 1 bay leaf (optional) 
• 1/2 tsp sugar. 
• Salt 
• water 
• Spaghetti. 

• No black/white papper for me, but you can hadd it if you want to. 

Let's go, 

In a cooking pot, heat the oil then add the grated onions and garlic. Let them soften up a bit. 

Put the minced meat and stir (+salt) until cooked. 

Grate your tomatoes (or blend them) and add them in the pot, then stir everything. let it cook for 3 minutes or so, then add water depending on your pot's size (try to fill up half of your pot) 

Add your 1/2 tea spoon of sugar to kill the acidity of tomatoes. 
Add a bay leaf. 
let cook. 

Boil your spaghetti, then drain it.

When the sauce is ready, add your spaghetti to it and let it get homogeneous with the sauce for roughly 5minutes (on low fire) 

Remove you bay leaf. 

Serve in one plate and share it. 

Bsahetkom, Bon appetit, Enjoy 

:) 

riZAtto - a Risotto a la Za-

By Za

Good morning everyone! 

Today I bring you a pretty much DYI-ed recipe. I was was mentioning to one of my Italian friends that needed some ideas for dinner (Iftar) and the conversation led to the recipe of the Italian Risotto. To tell the truth, I've onlu tried it once! I liked it but it was a bit too salty and heavy for me, could be the restaurant. I wasn't in Italy, the chef wasn't Italian, so I couldn't complain haha. 

So after I had taken the recipe from her, I hit the kitchen only to find out that I don't have some of the ingredients.. least of all Parmesan cheese! that thing never entered my house lol. 

So, I just thought of using whatever, well not literally, what I used was: 

• Spinach (a big bowl) - I buy them frozen. 
• 2 tbsp oil 
• 1 tomato 
• 4 Garlic cloves 
• 1/2 onion 
• Cumin and paprika (just the tip of the knife) 
• Rice 
• white cream 
• Kurkuma (tip of a knife) 
• salt
• Bacon (beef or Turkey) 
• 2 medium potatoes (optional) but they really add a nicer taste. 

• NO CHEESE 

So, use 2 cooking pots to start with, 

one to boil the rice, and the other to prepare your spinach mixture. 

The spinach mix: 
In a cooking pot, pour some oil and add your grated onion and garlic. stir them to soften for a bit. 

Add spinach and let it cook for while (7 minutes or so) 

Add the grated tomato on to and stir. let it cook + salt. 

Add a tiny bit of cumin and paprika, when the mixture is cooked, remove it off the stove and put it aside. 

Rice, 

Once the rice is boiled, sieve it and put it back in a cooking pot, add your white cream (if it's thick you can dilute it a bit with water) I did add a bit of water because the rice absorbs it quickly, so I add about 2 cm of a normal glass. 

Once the rice and cream become homogeneous, add your spinach mixture and stir, (if the whole mixture is thick, you can add either a bit of milk or water until you can the consistence you prefer) 

Now, add a little bit o Kurkurma, it smells nice, it gives it a flavour similar to curry, and everything turns yellow!! 

Bacon: 
on a frying pan, put 1 tbsp of oil and 1/2 tbsp of butter, and put your bacon to cook. 

keep it soft and flexible, once cooked, take it out and cover it with something because if it cools down it becomes chewy and hard. 

Potatoes

 boil your potatoes and add them to the riZAtto haha. 

Bsahetkom - Bon appetit - Enjoy 

:) 

Sweet cabbage sheets, lasagna style

By Karima.


Feeling like something similar to Lasagna, lighter and healthier? 
Get your Cabbage, black olives, a portion of rice and minced meat and follow the steps: 

boil your sweet cabbage leaves for 10 mintues. 


Meanwhile, prepare your stuffing: 
In a pot grate and soften an onion in a bit of oil. add the minced meat or chicken pieces. Once cooked add chopped black olives and boiled white rice. and mix well. 

Grease an oven dish and spread the sweet cabbage sheet gently to form a sort of carpet for the stuffing. Then add some of the stuffing on it. spread it evenly before you add another layer of the sweet cabbage sheets. 

Get some Bechamelle sauce and spread it nicely and gently on top of the last layer of cabbage

Wet your wooden spoon with water so that sauce doesn't stick to it

*

*

*

Voila !! 

Then chuck in the oven, and watch till all is cooked and smells wonderfully. 

ENJOY

*

Easy PEAS-y Jwaz (stew)

By Za 

I got this recipe from my auntie Sliyou, God's peace and blessings be on her. 
Hasn't been a while? 

well well, Ramadan table brings us back together! I hope everyone is well!

This Ramadan my table consisted on one main dish, juice and some sweets. That's all :)

So, I thought of sharing with you a dish that took me literally 20 minutes to prepare. 

Do yo have peas? frozen? it's ok, let's get started 

So we'll need 

• Medium diced hicken breast or meatballs 
• half an onion
• 3 to 4 garlic cloves. 
• 2 table spoons of oil (of your choice) 
• 1/2 table spoon of paprika 
• salt, 
• Peas (about 500g) or less if you like. 
• water

In a pot (if you have a pressure cooker, it would be much better), put oil and grated 1/2 onion and garlic and let them soften up a little before you add you chicken cube (if you're adding meatball, don't add them yet)
PS: Careful with the garlic - it burns quickly, you may want to add a spoo of water to help it get soft without burning. 

Stir the chicken with soft onions and garlic until the chicken grilled a little and gives a nice flavour, (if things get dry add a tiny bit of water) 

Add paprika and stir more. 

Add your peas (if they are frozen, it's ok don't wait for them to defrost, just chuck them in the pot)

Then, add water just enough to cover the peas and chicken. ( now you can add you meatballs if you don't want chicken) 

Salt 

Let cook.
If you're using a pressure pot, let it cook for 10 munites. If it's a regular pot, you may want to let them cook longer, and watch and feel the peas until they are soft as you like them. :)
you'll notice the sauce is reduced and thicked a little. 

PS: For the meatballs. once everything is cooked, I usually take them out and put them in a pan with a little oil and butter and let them brown and grill, to give a better taste (cover the pan) 

Place in a dish and decorate with chopped parsley and lemon slices (some people love to squeeze some lemon juice on the Jwas while eating) 

Bsahetkom - Bon appetit  Enjoy. 

Ramadan series: Yummy Healthy Salad

by Camy

After a whole day of fast, we need a healthy meal that will fill all of our body's needs. Ramadan is as much about purifying our mind and soul than our bodies to me! Anyways, here is a salad I love to make. It's light but also fills you up and is only composed of ingredients that are super good for our bodies and brain! ;D

Ok so here it goes !

Ingredients - and their health benefits!

• Quinoa - Full of protein for the muscles, magnesium to relax your muscles and blood vessels, fiber to ease the elimination, maganese and copper to get rid of dangerous cancer and disease-causing substances.
• Red or black beans - Full of protein and iron (like meat but low in fat and cholesterol-free!) and antioxidant (they have one of the highest antioxidant rating of all foods) to reduce risk of cancer and heart disease
• Corn - Full of fiber and vitamines!
• Tomatoes - Full of anti-oxydant, lycopene to reduce cholesterol and protect the heart, vitamine C to protect you from immune system deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, prenatal health problems, eye disease, and even skin wrinkling, vitamine A to improve vision, vitamine K which is essential in blood clotting and controls bleeding, potassium to maintain nerve health and iron
• Avocado  - Full of fiber, vitamine A, C, E, K, B5 and B6 for your eyes, your imune system, your heart, to prevent inflammations, for blood sugar regulation and to prevent cancer
• Green and/or Yellow and/or Red pepper (I like to put different types to add colours to the salad. In the end I like to put circa 1/4 of a whole peper.) - Full of vitamine A, C and K and antioxydant to prevent cancer and diseases relating to aging, support immune function, reduce inflamations, asthma and arthritis, decrease cholesterol, boost immunity, and reduce the risk of stomach ulcers.
• Garlic (a couple of cloves) - A natural antibiotic
• Onion - For your heart and to fight cancer
• Cilantro (or coriander, however you call it!) - A powerful natural cleansing agent, helps remove heavy metals and other toxic agent from the body, aids stimulate digestion (it also helps relieving stomach gaz... well it helps you stop farting!!)
• Lime or lemon - Full of vitamine C
• Olive oil - Full of anti-inflamatory agents, helps reduce cardio-vascular problems, helps the digestion, supports bone health, improves the cognitive functions, helps prevent cancer.
• Cumin powder - Reduces cholesterol and helps prevent diabet
  
• Salt

 

Step 1:
Put the quinoa to cook: for one cup of quinoa add one and a half cup of water in a pot. Put it to boil, then reduce the flame and let the quinoa cook until there's no water left in the pot. (It takes aproximatively 20 minutes.)


  
Step 2:
While the quinoa is cooking, drain the corn and beans and chop the rest of the veggies and the cilantro. Mix together. Add the cooked quinoa to the salad.

Step 3: The Sauce!
Add the juice of a lime to 4 table spoons of olive oil. Add 2 pinch of salt and a tea spoon of cumin powder. Mix well and add to your salad.

Step 4:
!!!Enjoy!!! :D

Of course you can add things up or remove ingredients you don't like and change the recipe to your liking! :D

Eat with a variety of other fruits and veggies for an even more balanced diet! :)

How to: Make a Messy, Yummy, Crazy Pizza!

by Camy 

!WARNING! THIS RECIPE IS SO AWSOME, IT'S COPYRIGHTED. PLEASE DO NOT COPY WITHOUT PERMISSION!

Ok, to make a Messy Yummy Crazy Pizza you will need:

 

  A friend too ashamed of the end result to appear on here
The smallest, tiniest oven you can find
Pizza dough
Tomatoe sauce
Cheese.... Looooads of cheese!
An olive

Step 1:

 Unroll the pizza dough on your table. Add the tomato sauce and the cheese... All the cheese...
...
Aah cheese... How could we live without cheese?...

 Anyways, back to buisness!

 Step 2:
Fold the dough in half and make the edge all cute using your fork

Make sure you look properly at this picture, it's the only nice one you'll see in this post.

Step 3:
Use a book to shove your pizza in the tiny teeny weeny oven. If it wrinkles/make wholes in your pizza/breaks it, good! That's what it should do.

Step 4:
At some point, your pizza should leak, and the cheese and tomatoe sauce should burn on the bottom of your oven. That's perfect. It's now time to take your pizza out of the oven. I recommend not using a book for this step, I think a wooden board would be more appropriate.
This step is pretty tricky because the MOST IMPORTANT thing is to let your pizza fall into a dish. Try to spill as much as you can on the table, on the floor and on yourself.

 
My advice as a wellknow gourmet would be not to eat what has spilled on the floor... I'm not sure it would be very good anyways.

Hmmmm! Looks yummy, right?!

Ok, now, put the "pizza" back in the oven and let it cook for some more minutes. How long? Well, you know, until it's eatable!


Step 5:
When your "pizza" is ready, it's time for you to decorate! I mean, you don't serve a piece of art like the Messy Yummy Crazy Pizza like any standard home failed pizza! Remember that olive I was telling you about at the very begining of this post? Well, it's time to take it out and make good use of it! With a gentle gesture, carefully put the olive on top of the "pizza". There. Perfect!

Not only does it look yummy but GOORGEOUS too!

Step 6:






 Eat, Laugh a lot, Enjoy!