Lebanese main dish & dessert

April's international cuisine was Lebanese. It wasn't the most successful month of cooking, but I did find a decent main dish and dessert recipe. The appetizer was a type of bread... but I'm going to make tweaks to the recipe I found and update on that later.

Lebanese food is usually heavily seasoned, but not spicy. It's very similar to Greek cuisine, and I wanted to make sure I found recipes that leaned more into the category of Lebanese and not Greek. For my main dish I made Lebanese Chicken & Potatoes.

     8 cut up chicken pieces
     8 small potatoes
     3 cloves garlic, crushed
     1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
     1 cup fresh lemon juice
     salt & white pepper to taste

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• Wash & peel potatoes. Slice the potatoes and chicken into bite size pieces and place in a large baking dish. Sprinkle salt and white pepper on top.
• In a bowl, stir together garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice. Pour over chicken and potatoes. 
• Cover dish with tinfoil and bake for 30 minutes. 
• Remove tinfoil and turn heat up to 475 degrees F and cook another 30 minutes.

Half a dish of Lebanese Chicken & Potatoes.

This was a very basic recipe and turned out well. It makes about 5-7 servings. The only pain was crushing the garlic cloves, so I gave that task to the Boyfriend Unit. The lemon juice gave the flavor a nice twang. I would recommend this as a dish if you have guests over and want to whip up something a little different.




The dessert was super awesome. Technically, it's more of an Algerian cookie, but Lebanese desserts do tend to favor almonds, so I let that slide. However, it's not a cheap dessert to make due to the amount of almonds needed. Nether the less, I created a batch of Makroud el Louse (or if you want an easier name, call them Algerian Almond Cookies).

     1 pound almonds, whole
     1 cup sugar
     2 eggs, lightly beaten
     2 cups water
     1/2 cup sugar
     1 tablespoon orange extract
     3 cups powdered sugar

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Grind almonds into a fine powder and then add to large bowl. Stir in 1 cup of sugar.
• Make a crater in the center of the pulverized almonds & sugar. Add the eggs and stir with spoon until the dough comes together. 
• Knead the dough with clean hands until smooth. Divide the dough into 4 equal portions and remove to a floured work surface. 
• Roll one portion out into a rope about as thick as two fingers. Press down to slightly flatten the roll and then cut the rope at a diagonal to make 1 inch pieces. 
• Repeat with the rest of the dough and place the 1 inch pieces on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake cookies 12 minutes and then let cool.
• While cookies bake, bring the water and 1/2 cup of sugar to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Stir to dissolve sugar and let boil for 10 minutes. Removed from heat, stir in the orange extract, and let cool to room temperature. 
• Get a bowl to hold the powdered sugar. Lightly dip each cookie into the sugar syrup and then dip into powdered sugar to coat the dampened part of the cookies. Place on rack to dry and repeat process for all cookies.

Before baking in the oven.

After baking in the oven.

These cookies are so darn good. I couldn't help but eat a few while typing in the instructions. I was very leery about what the results would be, but I was happy with the taste and texture. I ended up with 48 cookies from this one recipe. I shared with some family and friends, and the cookies received one thumbs up (because the other thumb was busy holding another cookie). If you can't find orange extract, you can use a teaspoon of lemon zest. I'm not sure if the orange extract really added to the flavor, but it does give the cookies a heavenly aroma.

I only have one major rule for this cookie - make sure you share.

Fun fact - This entry doesn't really have any fun facts.

Dang Dangos

Okay. Finally. The Japanese dessert.

Dangos are dang hard to make. I'm not even fully sure I made them correctly... And frankly, I'm a little scared to actually taste them. Might just be one of those dishes I have the Boyfriend Unit eat before I risk my own taste buds.

Fun fact: Dangos are dumplings that can be either savory or sweet. They are usually served on bamboo skewers.

I found my recipe on The Anime Blog, and decided to create the Easy Dango:

          1 cup mochiko (sweet rice flour)
          1/4 boiling water

• Fill medium sized saucepan with water and boil
• Slowly add a small amount of water to the mochiko and carefully knead dough together
• Keep slowly adding water until dough is the consistency and texture of an earlobe
• Form dough into small balls and add them to boiling water
• Cook for 8 minutes or until they float to the surface

Fun fact: Bocchan dango has three colors. One is colored by red beans, the second by eggs, and the third by green tea. I just used food dye.

Dangos are often accompanied with sauces. I sprinkled white & brown sugar on top.

So end result - worse dish I have ever made. Don't make dangos. At least, not these dangos. There are some recipes that require the balls to be grilled instead of boiled, which seems more promising. But it's probably best if you just bake some plain ol' chocolate chip cookies for dessert instead.