Makaroona Blaban is my favourite dish of all time. It's quite simple, and it takes 20mins to prepare.
After a discussion with a certain someone from the board, ive decided to share some more lebanese dishes here as part of my intention to share more cultrual aspects with TFP.
My father taught me how to do this simple dish when i was a kid. He is a perfectionist, and i love his dedication to his food. With this being my favourite dish, i always put 100% into this dish. No shortcuts entertained nor allowed. i cant say this about any other dish. period.
Serves 4 People
so here is the ingredients
750g spaghetti
750g of low fat yoghurt
3 cloves crushed garlic
olive oil
400g of minced meat
a handful of pine nuts
salt and pepper
bring 1litre of water in a pot to a boil, and put in the spagetti (you could use other types of pastas, shells tend to keep the yoghurt sauce a little better but traditionally this is done in spaghetti). I like my spaghetti to be broken into 3 sections lengthwise. Make sure you put in a pinch of salt in the water to keep the pasta from sticking together.
In the meantime, put a tiny bit of olive oil in a pan and cook the minced meat until they are cooked to medium on medium to high heat. make sure the mince meat is crumbled once you cook it. do not use butter as the buttery taste ruins the clean yoghurt/garlic taste in the meal.
Next put the pine nuts in the pan and cook on low heat until golden brown and put in a seperate container.
crush the garlic and put in the serving bowl along with the yoghurt. use salt and pepper as required here. mix the yoghurt, with the garlic.
check on your pasta and make sure it's ready. To check your pasta, bite your pasta. if you see a slight 'o' ring in the pasta cross section, and there's not 'bite'to the pasta, then it's ready. i deally you want to cook it for no more than 20 mins. a soft pasta will give you a squishy soft pasta that'd get damaged when you mix the ingredients together.
When the pasta is ready, it is VITAL that you drain the pasta and then let it sit for a minute of two. toss the pasta a little to let the heat out between the spaghetti. The reason for this is that if you expose the yoghurt to a hot pasta the yoghurt is going to curdle and ruin. You want a rich thick coating of yoghurt, so you need to make sure that the pasta is not too hot.
pour the spaghetti into the bowl with the yoghurt and crushed garlic and mix.
.
You need to make sure that you dont just miz the pasta, but rather 'fold' the pasta from the outside in until throughly mixed.
lastly add in the pine nuts and again fold the pasta to mix well. you could add som more yoghurt at thsi point if you decide that you didnt put enough initially or if your yoghurt has curled a little from the heat.
and there you have it..My favourite lebanese dish. Nice, quick and tasty lebanese dish in 20 mins.