Feast in the Middle East

Cameron sent me a message on facebook a few weeks ago that Shane's birthday was coming up and that he wanted to cook up a feast. As you can imagine, I jumped at the opportunity. After a couple more messages back and forth, Cameron mentioned a Middle Eastern theme. I've never cooked Middle Eastern food (unless you count Greek - which turned out to be pretty similar) so I was excited. Then, of course, we made lamb kebabs two days prior to the party but I digress.

We chatted a couple of times about it and settled on a menu. Thursday we hit up Phoenicia market on Burnet. I will most definitely be frequenting this specialty market. They have all kinds of crazy stuff from the Middle East, India, UK, Asia, etc. We just picked up some turmeric, dried mint, sumac, and Greek-style yogurt. Friday we headed to Central Market for protein and produce. Then started some prep. I whipped up some Tabouli Salad - bulgur wheat, cucumber, tomato, parsley, mint, lemon, olive oil.













Cameron put together his Shirazi Salad - cucumber, tomato, red onion, dried mint.













I set up the chicken marinade - Greek-style yogurt, turmeric, garlic and lemon - then cut chicken thighs into bite-size pieces and tossed em in the marinade. Then I set up a tzatziki for dippin.

Saturday: We broke down a whole lamb leg roast and cut it into bite-size pieces and Cameron tossed it into a lemon-garlic vinaigrette to marinate. We made some hummus - chickpeas, pine nuts, tahini, garlic (roasted and fresh), lemon juice and olive oil. I put together a baklava - I blanched pistachios and almonds and ground them with cinnamon and sugar; made a syrup of sugar, water, lemon, clove and cinnamon; layered phyllo dough with butter and the nut mixture; baked it; poured the syrup over the baked deliciousness and let it soak for 4 hours; the result was tasty deliciousness.












Cameron also made these ground beef skewers - ground beef, grated onion, garlic, turmeric, sumac and an egg. You let that sit for awhile to set up and then form sort of a log out of it, skewer it and grill it and it is delicious! We also skewered the chicken and lamb and a bunch of veggies and grilled it all (in addition to some bacon and onion pork sausage that we got from CM*). Here is what our glorious Persian feast looked like:













It was fantastic. We had some grilled pita that had been made fresh at Phoenicia that morning. We had a nice veggie tray provided by Ethan. And we had some tasty cold beverages. Thanks to Summer, Keri, and Beka, this was all enjoyed poolside. We had a blast prepping, cooking, and eating this feast.

*So we saw this bacon and onion pork sausage whilst picking up our protein for the party. I ask the guy behind the counter if he had had this wonderful creation. "I made it," he replied. So, naturally, I ask if it's delicious. "I hate bacon," was his reply.

Let that soak in.

Yea. The butcher at CM that made BACON AND ONION PORK SAUSAGE HATES BACON!!!!! What?! I almost went over the counter at him. I showed him my bacon wallet and he threw in 2 extra sausages. Also, they were freaking delicious.