Adas bi hamod
other word for the best lentils, plus how carob and diamonds are related!
welcome to COOKING THE MED !
Because you love food from the Mediterranean. From the east to the west, from Palermo to Beirut. Because you need uncomplicated recipes full of flavour in your life, original, authentic and modern at the same time. And no life without lemon, olive oil, onion and garlic. I hope you will feel at home here in Café Mazahar’s COOKING THE MED.
DEAR READERS
I wish you a happy new year! With peace and love for all, i hope for this with my whole heart, even if it doesn’t come close to reality now.
Today i thought to myself, i’ll go and spend a nice long day with my 8 year Anaroz, since it’s still the holidays. We will go to a museum in another city, walk around a bit, maybe if she’s lucky we’ll do some shopping (growing up on acid). I suggested this great plan and guess what ( i know you guess it right) i got the tiniest enthusiasm in return. Museums are boring, she declared looking at me as if i just suggested here to clean her room. Ok i said, you think all museums are boring or just this one. They are all boring she exclaimed. Though i want to go the Diamond museum. But can you ask if a friend wants to join, i don’t want to go only with you (so sweet). Don’t worry if you are not a parent who thinks hell yeah i know this, this will not end up being a story about kids. But of a discovery, because in the end the museum was small but interesting. I learned something i really have to share with you here. I was not expecting it at all!
DIAMONDS?
In relation to a Mediterranean food? In fact yes! It seems the locust bean or carob tree was used since centuries as tool to weigh gem stones like diamonds. The seeds of the carob bean are mostly a stable 0.2 g and became a measurement. Wow, simple yet clever. And there it comes: the Greek word for carob is keration and the Arab word is kharroub, from which the word carat is derived. So carat basically means carob. I was really exited to read this. If you want to know how those seeds look like, you can see it here
CAROB MOLASSES
And before turning to the warming lentils. Now that I talk about carob, when i was a child i used to hate the carob spread my mum would buy for me instead of chocolate spread like nutella. But a bit later in life, in my Lebanese life i fell in love with carob, a totally new love it seemed to me. Because the syrup you get when you boil down crushed pods with water, is just so velvety, earthy sweet and tasty and so different. Especially the ones that are made in an artisanal way as you can see here in this beautiful short video made by Nay Aoun about Fadwa, her husband and son Georges who make carob molasses the traditional way in Lebanon. I also love the traditional carob sfouf cake, made with the molasses, giving it it’s beautiful brown colour as you see here:
But the best and most simple way to eat it is like this if you ask me…some tahina, a drizzle of carob and just swipe…..swipe….addictive.
You can buy carob molasses in any Middle Eastern/Mediterranean supermarkt, of a Turkish, Lebanese or Greek brand maybe.
LENTIL LOVERS THIS IS FOR YOU
I’m never a fan of the month of January because it’s often gloomy and dark. But: lentils always come to the rescue. Especially those famous Lebanese lentils: Adas (the arabic word for lentils) bi hamod (with lemon). Which is basically a very simple poor man’s dish of soupy stewed lentils with sweet onions, generous garlic, fresh coriander, potato, some greens like swiss chard or spinach (which i left out this time, substituted with more coriander), olive oil and lots of tangy lemon juice. Comforting and warming.
I dressed my Adas bi hamod up because I needed extra flavour and i wanted to make it into a full meal. Extended version: with a lemony yoghurt, crispy sumac bread (which i had leftover from a fattoush salad of the other night) and poached eggs. A full on meal and you cannot stop eating. Here we were fighting over it.
This lentil recipe of this week is for my growing posse, and maybe it will be the one to lure you in? For a small bottle of olive oil you value my work and you make sure i can continue. Hope to see you at the lentil table of Cooking the Med!
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