- We bring it to the--
to the edge, we're gonna have
to do it from underneath.
- I'm gonna go like--
- Like this
- Okay, so I have this
and then go like this?
- Right, ha!
I'm counting to three, one,
two, three, let's go, opah!
[light music]
- [Andy] All right, today's assignment
is somewhat of a tough one,
I shouldn't say tough
one, but definitely one
that I have a lot of feelings about.
I'm gonna be looking
into Palestinian food.
[lively music]
I have somewhat of a sense
of kind of the flavors
and certain dishes, you
know I've been to Palestine.
But I have, been around the Levant.
The Levant is a region of the Middle East.
Okay, so I'm gonna be
cooking with Rawia Bishara.
She wrote a book Olives,
Lemons and Za'atar.
She also owns a restaurant
in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Called Tanoreen, I think
it's been around for,
oh God, almost 20 years, I've
been there once a while back,
had a really delicious meal there.
She was born in Nazareth, Israel.
But she's Palestinian and
she's gonna be kind of
our go-to figure with kind of
cooking all the dishes today.
I really just wanna get a
great sense of Palestine
and the range of food from
top to bottom of the country.
So, I'm hoping to get a clear sense.
This is the Tanoreen,
this is the menu,
and this is the kitchen.
So glad to be back with the owner, Rawia.
I can't believe we're doing this,
I think it's a--
- I'm so happy you are.
- [Andy] We're gonna be
cooking what dishes today?
- [Rawia] Fatoush,
Makloobeh,
and Knafeh.
- When did you open Tanoreen?
- 20 years ago.
- Were you cooking back home?
- The motivation?
- I wanna know
the story behind it.
- I really didn't cook back home,
I cooked a lot in my house.
We were like hotel Bishara they called us.
I always had people over,
I always had people sleeping over,
and I'm cooking all the time.
So it always came up, why
don't you open a restaurant?
- We have all this stuff
on the table here that
we're going to be using in the kitchen.
But I kinda wanted to
get your thoughts on like
what is what, there's so
many different things,
and just take us through it.
[light music]
- You see, I love using spices.
It's the main ingredients in my cooking.
I think it makes the whole taste complete.
So, I think we're gonna start
you with the nine spices.
- [Andy] Okay.
- Nine spices is
mostly, everything you
have in here, it's my base.
[light music]
[drum roll]
- You get the subtle subtle
heat from the black peppercorns
- Maybe
- But you get
the sweetness from the nutmeg
- Yeah
- And also--
- And the cinnamon
- And the cinnamon, yeah!
- And the cloves
- Cloves!
The cloves you get for sure.
- [Rawia] Gives it a little--
- [Andy] This one, I'm familiar with.
- Za'atar!
- Za'atar.
- See za'atar is an herb,
it's not even a spice.
- I don't think people know that,
I don't think people know that
za'atar is an actual herb,
people just think of
it has a spice.
- It's an herb
that we use it in greens here.
I use it in feta salad,
all the time green.
Za'atar is sharp--
- Pungent.
- Pungent,
you even feel it in your throat.
- It definitely smells like thyme.
You know, and you get a little
bit of a sesame and then
you can see a few like dots of sumac too.
[drum roll]
- That's the right way to taste it.
It's out of your hand.
- That's pretty good,
I'm not, I know there's a camera on us.
That is pretty good,
you know why?
- Isn't it?
- A lot of za'atar doesn't
actually have the za'atar
the herb they'll put thyme
- Right, right.
- Or sometimes they'll put mint.
- They mix
- You know,
but this--
- That's the problem
with za'atar here.
- This over here, like
you get the tart acidity
from the sumac--
- It's all that!
I eat spoon of za'atar every night.
- Every night?
- Every night.
I'm in love with za'atar.
- [Andy] Before bed or just for--
- I get in the mood, I get
up, I take a spoon of za'atar.
- So we've gone through
kind of all the spices,
I guess there's one left and that's
the sumac that's also in the za'atar.
I love sumac, I use a lot of sumac.
How would you describe
sumac and what is it?
- Sumac is lemony tart taste,
when you don't want to use lemon juice
because the juice can ruin what
you're doing because of
the liquid factor in it
and it's dry, lemony taste
with no water, no fluid at all.
And you need that in many of our dishes.
[drum roll]
- So this is, this is what,
I didn't even think
about it until just now.
Sometimes when it's dried too long,
it's almost dusty
- Exactly, in your mouth
- You know?
And it's not, it's not tender.
This, dissolves still
- Exactly
- It tastes, lemony,
which is funny!
Okay so thank you for going
through all the ingredients.
I have a pretty good sense,
I was pretty comfortable with
a lot of these ingredients
but just to be able to kind of taste
each and every one of them,
especially the ones that you're
getting here at Tanoreen,
I feel like I'm ready to
go in the kitchen and cook.
- I think we should.
- Okay, let's do it.
[light music]
I know what we're about to make.
- Okay
- 'Cause I've had it
many many times, but there's
definitely a few ingredients
that I haven't seen before and
we're making fatoush, right?
- [Rawia] Right, right
- So, what does fatoush mean in Arabic?
- Fatoush is, a combination.
The name comes from fa-tish, look.
It's whatever you've
got, it's what you found.
- So these are kind of the things that--
- It's the kind of the
things that's filling up
your refrigerator, you
don't know what to do with.
Some of this, some of that.
- So we have tomatoes--
- Persian cucumber, red
onion, white onion, radicchio
lettuce, mint and--
- parsley
- The way it is is fantastic.
What you need to do is put some of this in
and the other some we're gonna keep.
[light music]
One large--
- Big!
Oh wow, large, oh okay two, oh!
- Of sumac!
I'll tell you when.
- You want it to be wet.
- Right.
Okay, we stop here.
Little bit of salt.
You mix it.
[light music]
Then we leave it here.
- [Andy] I love that little trick, that--
- You like it?
- That's, yeah--
Okay, so that's the fatoush.
So we're in the dining room of Tanoreen.
I like to think that I helped
out a little bit with the food
- Yeah, you helped a
lot, you did this bread.
- Your daughter, Jumana
[light music]
who is your partner
also in the restaurant.
- Right
- And you're gonna be eating with us.
- Yes
- I'm gonna be talking
- I'm excited because she made all
the quintessential Palestinian dishes.
[classical music]
- Pickles in Arabic, you would call them--
- Mac-a-beese
- Macabeese.
And you make these
- [speaks in foreign language]
in house
- Right
- We make these in-house.
- I love anything sour,
and it seems, that seems to be the flavor.
- You're in the right place.
- So these pickles are
on the Palestinian table
no matter what meal you eat,
breakfast, lunch or dinner,
there's always a plate
of pickles at the table.
- It already tastes and
looks very different than
a lot of the fatoush that I've had.
And when I think of fatoush,
I think of crispy pita
- Yep!
- Cucumbers,
tomatoes, some kind of herbs,
parsley or mint typically,
sumac, lemon juice and olive oil,
which that's all in here,
but the ice berg, the radicchio,
the pomegranate seeds,
it's a lot more going on and makes
it just more colorful and vibrant.
- This is a nice fatoush for your family.
You try to do
everything right!
If you do for customers
what you do for your family,
they're gonna love it.
- They're gonna keep coming back too.
- They're gonna love it!
- For me, fatoush is all about the bread.
- It's all about the bread?
- I mean, what makes a
fatoush a fatoush really?
This could be just a mixed salad
- Salad
- if the toasted pita
wasn't on it
- How about the sumac?
- Yeah
- Well you know,
sumac could be part of a dressing
but I think for me personally
- It's never leave out
- fatoush is the bread!
- All right, Rawia, I
know you insisted like
if we're gonna be cooking
a few different dishes from Palestine
- Right
- You said there's one dish
that's like is so intrinsic to Palestine
and iconic and that is--
- [Rawia] Makloobeh!
It means upside down.
- Oh, upside down.
- So when you've done something
upside down, it's makloobeh.
It's like a pie
- Oh it's like a pie, okay.
- Of meat and vegetables really,
it's a celebration.
- Take me through the steps,
so what's the first step in making this.
- Okay, first step is
to start with the meat,
we're gonna put some spices on it.
[lively music]
Add black pepper too.
[lively music]
Eggplant
- Eggplant, right, okay.
Right here
- [Andy] Oh wow!
[lively music]
- [Rawia] To make it stand,
you want it to look like a flower.
Two cups of rice.
[lively music]
It gets all the way up to, look at it.
I like to make it one
layer, I go like this.
And it will be even.
Take it there.
And it's light, easier to carry.
We bring it to the edge.
You're gonna have to
do it from underneath.
This side
- I'm gonna go like--
- Like this
- Okay, so I have this
- Right, outside--
- And then go like this
- Right!
- Okay
- To my side!
One [laughs] I'm counting to three!
One, two, three, let's go, Opah!
Right on, man!
- That feels good.
- Okay, and we--
easy, easy take it out.
- Oh wow
- You see why we put that?
- Oh yeah.
- You see how it's holding?
- Mhm
- That was for protection.
- It really was!
It did
- It did exactly
serve its purpose.
I decided to use only almonds for this,
it stays crunchy.
[classical music]
This is our most popular,
it's usually served with everything.
We don't wash, we just cook
and it comes out fantastic.
- Fantastic,
it's tender, it's fluffy
and it really absorbs
the kind of juices that
the meat was cooking in,
but also the natural juices
from all the vegetables.
- I think, matloobeh is nice because
it's festive, it's big--
- Well, it's definitely family style.
I mean, you can't really cook
this dish for one or two people.
- You can, but you're
gonna have it little.
You can
- That's true.
- Which is delicious
leftover the next day.
- I love how, little leftovers
probably gonna be like
a months worth of food.
- Are you ready to make knafeh?
- I'm ready, okay!
Knafeh I've had many many times.
It is one of the most unique, delicious,
desserts
- Right!
- I think in the world.
I think so!
- A lot of people do.
- [Andy] So we have
three main parts it seems
- [Rawia] Three main!
- [Andy] You have the phyllo,
this is the ghee.
- In between your hands
and then you go strong.
- So each--
So that it's all coated.
- All coated in a good way too,
not just coated a little bit.
Coated!
While I'm putting a coating for the tray,
we're gonna make the knafeh.
- [Andy] So more ghee.
- Orange blossom dye,
it's more for the color but
it does give little taste.
And then we take it for the whole tray
because that's gonna be
when you flip the knafeh,
because we flip knafeh too!
We always think the bottom
is better than the top
because we don't see it I guess,
I don't know!
What you do with this,
you take half of this amount,
you put it here,
and you spread and you press,
and then we have another half
of the dough to put on top!
Then you bring your cheese.
This is already mixed cheese.
- What's the kind of cheese I
think would be easiest to use?
- I think mozzarella and ricotta.
- Mozzarella and ricotta
- This is the closest.
But you have to sweeten the mozzarella,
you cannot use it the way it is.
- Just the way it is
- Yeah
- [Andy] Okay so you're just spooning
a little bit more ghee on top.
- [Rawia] Just a little bit
- [Andy] And this will go
in the oven for how long?
- [Rawia] For 15 minutes
- 15 minutes?
- Yep
Yes Andy, let's go!
[light music]
- Yep, and it smells cheesy.
Do you want me to flip it?
- Let's go man!
One, two, three, go!
See!
Yay, this down.
It's gonna make it melt off
that and you don't want that.
You wanna go gradual everywhere.
Especially when you do
a large one like this.
This, and you go like this.
I like a generous amount, let's eat!
Especially knafeh, has to be hot!
[classical music]
- I think it has a sweet
and savory quality to it.
- Yeah
- Yes
- Like it is sweet
- Part of it
- But the cheese has
that you know, kind of--
You know, it's also more of a--
Has a fresh, milkiness to it,
rather than like an aged cheese.
- Goes wonderfully with mint black tea
that we boil with mint.
- Yes, because you have
the sweetness from here
and then the tea is almost like
it's a stringent and bitter
in it goes--
- Balance it out
- It balance it out.
Thank you guys so much,
it's been such an adventure!
And I'm so glad to kind
of come back and I mean,
I still feel like a guest except
rather than the dining room
I was in the kitchen and I'm gonna go back
and try to do justice
- And you're gonna be
able to do it!
- I love that you have
a lot of confidence in me, I love that!
- I do!
- A lot of people
were just like all right
you're gonna try to do this?
I don't know if it's gonna work out.
- No I think you can do it as well
- You can do this!
- I feel good because
I'm familiar with a lot
of these ingredients
but not necessarily these dishes
so I feel like there's very
much a connection right there
right off the bat.
- So that's all you need,
you'll make it right.
- Sure
- I'm 100% sure you will.
[classical music]
- I just spent the day with Rawia,
it was amazing to see kind of
all these ingredients that
a lot of which I was pretty familiar with,
the warm spices, the
za'atar and also dishes that
I've tried before, some that I've tried,
some that I haven't.
I think seeing the makloobeh,
her version in the kind of dome shaped pot
which I've never seen before,
and the technique of inverting it
which I'm familiar with
doing that with rice
but seeing it kind of layered like that,
with the different vegetables and the rice
and the tomatoes, that's
definitely a dish I wanna take
back to the test kitchen
and try to recreate.
I wanna make it a little
bit more streamlined
and maybe less ingredients
and probably use like a Dutch oven.
That might work for the flipping.
With the knafeh,
I think the trickiest part is going
to be the cheese filling,
Rawia makes her own
cheese curds I believe.
So I think I'm gonna try
to recreate the makloobeh
and the knafeh back in the test kitchen.
Get somebody from the test
kitchen to try, judge me,
and hopefully make Rawia proud!
All right guys, I'm back
in the test kitchen today
and I'm gonna be making a
few dishes from Tanoreen with
Sohla!
[light music]
Hi Sohla!
- Hey, how's it goin'?
- We've never been on camera together.
- We have, Thanksgiving!
Right when I started.
- I'm very forgetful.
[light music]
Have you been to Tanoreen in Bay Ridge?
- No but I've been wanting to go.
- So you know about it?
- Yeah
- You know about
the food that they make.
- Yeah!
- We're making two dishes
from the restaurant, the
first one is makloobeh.
Do you know what that is?
- No [laughs].
- So it's a layered rice dish.
I'm just gonna ask,
what's your background?
- I'm Bengali.
- I'm Persian.
And so we both have grew up
eating a decent amount of rice.
- We have a lot of appreciation for rice.
- A lot of appreciation,
a lot of opinions.
And then the next dish I know
you are aware of and that's
knafeh
- Koo-ne-fe?
- Knafeh
How do you say it?
- Koo-nah-fe?
- Koo-nah-fe, I say ka-ne-feh.
I think it's knafeh.
- Okay, we'll see, the
internet will tell us.
- The internet will tell
us, you will tell us.
So I will say this,
this isn't everything that we tasted but
this is what's Rawia ind of described
as the big kinda flavors of Palestine.
So this is their za'atar blend.
- Oh, it's theirs, okay!
- Yeah, they sell it at the restaurant.
- I don't think I've ever
had it like this before.
- Cumin seeds, ground cumin,
I like cumin.
- Wow?
Oh right, you only like it
if you don't know it's there.
- No, no, no, it's okay but it just needs
to like make a cameo.
- Uh-huh
- It can't just be
like yeah, I'm here for a while.
- I can get down with a lot of cumin.
- Yeah
- Cumin!
- [Andy] Moving on,
we've got some cardamom,
nutmeg, sumac, slivered almonds,
some nice pine nuts.
And pistachios.
Okay, so we tasted some
of the ingredients.
I'm just gonna go into the makloobeh
and then I might recruit you.
- Okay!
- All right, let's do it.
[light music]
We already have a few of the
layers kind of done for us.
The cauliflower has been sauteed
with a little bit of cumin
and salt the meat it's lamb leg,
that's been browned and cooked
with a little bit of water.
[classical music]
Just heat the oil up,
I'm gonna add the onions,
I'm gonna add the garlic,
and then cover the pot.
Do a quarter teaspoon cumin.
So, the onions, I kind of want them like
definitely deeply golden brown.
- Uh-huh
- Right?
- [Sohla] Like jammy.
- Okay, that feels right.
Take this, the layering begins now.
- [Sohla] Gently falling from the heavens.
- Oh, our hands are the heavens.
- Our hands are God.
These are the hands of God.
- She said it, I didn't.
[lively music]
We have eight cups of lamb stock.
All right.
So we have our
makloobeh
- Mhm!
- This is I guess the plate we wanna use,
I'm worried about the lip
but three, two, one and I'll go on one.
- Three?
- Yeah
- Two
- Uh-huh
- One
Ohhh!
- That's pretty centered too.
- It looks pretty good!
You gotta--
- This is the hard part.
- This is the hard part, you
gotta go straight up, huh?
[gasp] Oh!
Ohhh!
You lost the top layer,
that's what happened to her
too though you said, right?
- Yes, we're gonna scrape.
Ugh!
This is not like tadeek by the way,
for anyone whose watching,
this isn't the way I grew up making rice
or how I would make--
So if anybodys gonna come at me,
I just wanna make sure.
[lively music]
- [laughs] Goin' for it.
- This definitely seems like a dish
you really have to practice.
Sohla, what did you do?
- Wow!
- So this is their version
which obviously beats our version.
- [Sohla] That's pretty spectacular.
- Perfected it.
Ugh!
- This is a really good first try.
Like the rice isn't over cooked too far.
- Now I think my problem was
playing around with the layering.
- Maybe a wider, shallower pot.
- I think yeah, definitely,
a wider more shallow,
just so that there isn't so
much room to kind of collapse.
- Yeah, yeah
- But why don't we try it?
- Yeah!
- [Sohla] Wow!
What a treat, what a dream!
- What you want!
It was nice, making it together!
- Sweeter than I was expecting.
- You can make out the individual grains.
Definitely
heavily spiced.
Moving on!
[classical music]
Too much liquid.
Definitely more subtle flavor.
- But I'm getting a lot of
savoriness from the stock.
- I'm a little disappointed
but uh--
- It's really tasty
though I feel like if you
just reduce the ratio of rice.
- Yeah, I think it's just as
someone who cooks rice a lot,
this is completely new for me,
you know I would very much
kind of hard boil the rice,
layer the ingredients.
- I think it's a really tasty
first version
- First version!
Yeah, yeah!
- Should we move onto the--
- Dessert?
- Knafeh, yeah.
[light music]
- Okay
- You make knafeh before?
- I have!
- [Andy] So this is the shredded phyllo
and we're gonna like
moisten it with the ghee
but I think we should like
snip it, don't you think?
- I just do it with my hands.
- With your hands?
- Like, yeah.
- Just tear it?
- Yeah!
[lively music]
- You thinking what I'm thinking?
- Yeah!
- What?
- Food color?
- Yes!
I feel like an eight inch
cake pan works perfectly fine.
- Oh, she used a smaller dish?
- [Andy] No, she used a bigger one, sorry.
- A bigger one.
I realized the goal color was red.
I'm wondering if we have
too much cheese, all right!
- [Andy] So we have our
phyllo, cheese, phyllo, okay.
It's gonna go in the oven.
[lively music]
Very toasty.
Cheesy, hopefully.
Melty.
- Already looks loose!
- Oh look, see!
- Yeah, that's gonna--
Three, two,
- I didn't even--
- Two and a half.
Two and three quarters?
- Yeah
- Three, one [laughs]
I forgot which was I was counting.
- Oh it didn't come, it didn't fall.
That's annoying.
- Tap it tap it.
- I'm kidding you guys, obviously it came!
- Oh!
- Oh!
- This looks very holiday appropriate.
- [Andy] It really does!
- [Sohla] Oh, yeah!
Have a little cheese pull.
- I think using a
just a cake pan worked truly well
and the cheese I mean,
I think I would want it
a little bit pully apart
but more pully apart
but I think the flavor
is very very similar.
- It's really tasty, really
good I'm crushing it.
- Thank you so much Sohla.
- Thank you so much for taking
me on your Tanoreen adventure
Truly a pleasure!
- Great to have Sohla in,
she was a big big help and provided
a decent amount of guidance.
I took some photos of the
makloobeh and the knafeh
that I wanna share to Rawia and Jumana.
I think they'd be mostly proud, mostly.
The makloobeh, I think I
need to perfect a little bit,
especially with the distinct
layers, less liquid,
but the knafeh, I think
it was a pretty good job
and that's something where once
you have all the ingredients
it's easy to make at home.
But both of the dishes I
wanna kind of incorporate
and kind of practice
a little bit on my own
and hopefully you guys will too
and can't wait for my next adventure!
