The al-Qalha family's food trail began in Jaffa, became an empire in Jordan, passed through Kuwait and returned to Jaffa, where Ahmad Hatab and his mother Samira cook dishes, which from the first taste it is clear he will miss.
Ahmad Khatab was 5 years old when he started playing football for the young people of Jaffa.
There was no team for his peers then, but he had enough talent and burning in his nimble legs to give him an unnecessary shirt and lift him to games where the team led, for the last few minutes, to taste the grass.
Za'ulul, a chick in Arabic, was called the little pioneer, and from there came the nickname "Zizu", which has stuck with him to this day.
Then he played in the youth of Maccabi Jaffa, and there, in the game against Hapoel Tel Aviv, when he scored a goal in the half-court, the host team asked him for it.
Maccabi Jaffa did not release, Zizu started crying, Jimmy Turk intervened, and he started playing for Hapoel alongside the gifted of that period, including Eran Zehavi.
But the promise was not made for a career in the seniors and football continued with him for a hookah coffee he opened on Jerusalem Boulevard, where games were broadcast.
Jews, Arabs, almost all boys, shouting in front of screens.
Was happy, but Zizu wanted more.
He dreamed of opening a place with his mother, Samira Khatab of Beit al-Kalha, a family whose history of wandering in the evening left traces in food as far as Kuwait.
Three years ago, on Shlomo Bouka Street, Clock Square, he opened Cafe Zizu, a place that specialized in dishes he prepared together with his mother.
Shishbarak, stuffed, various legume and meat dishes were served there, until last June, the Corona, Zizu and Mom decided to close the restaurant and open a hummus shop under it, one that takes no risks, which responds nicely to the city's delivery race.
And so, years after his great-grandfather, Taufik al-Kalha, opened the 1920s al-Kalha hummus, which boasted a Beirut recipe and was housed in the police building on Clock Square, his grandson reopened, within touching distance, hummus under the same name.
* * *
We met at Walt.
I felt like chickpeas when I first came across a name I did not know, with a different menu from the others.
There was madness.
Among other things, they have falafel dotted with sesame seeds, stuffed with fried onions and pine nuts, or feta, a lust dish made of layers, which uses old bread and roams in evening kitchens in countless versions.
In the wig they offer there is richness and there is delicacy and it is installed with chickpeas, with or without sheitel meat, tahini cream and yoghurt, yesterday's bread crumbs fried until browned, which will withstand the absorption of yoghurt cream and tahini and the fragrant blanket of marking, the same distilled butter, free of milk solids The days of butter, its durability in cooking and she is a big star in evening kitchens.
Marked on the side and marked with boiled egg yolks laid over a bean stew, a wonderful dish that like the stuffed falafel, I have not encountered before.
The kind of flavors that at first eating make it clear to the mouth that he is going to miss them.
"This is Mom and Dad's food," says Samira when I was born in the small kitchen, learning from her to install legume stews for the winter of Jaffa, hearing the history of the al-Kalha family who left Jaffa in '48, so her parents, Miriam and Ahmed, were parents For two children.
When they arrived in Nablus, Dad found a job in a small restaurant, three more children were born and after three years the family moved on, to Jordan.
There, in the Great Square in Amman, Samira's father opened al-Kalha, a two-story restaurant that was a great success and a photograph of it hangs on the walls of the small restaurant in Jaffa, waiting for the day when the corona will leave here and diners will return to space.
There, in Jordan, Samira was also born, the sixth of the ten children of Ahmed and Miriam.
When she was 6, the family moved to Kuwait, where the tenth child was born and where Ahmed set up another restaurant, leaving to be married, Samara's brother, the restaurant in Jordan, which operates to this day and has been a chain throughout the kingdom.
It is doubtful that you will meet a Jordanian who does not know or has heard the name al-Kalha.
From Kuwait she remembers a good life, trips to Damascus and beautiful Lebanon, and the mouth remembers paradise, piles of fish and shrimp.
"A full tray of fresh shrimp costs half a dinar in Kuwait, 15 shekels," she laughs.
"I love the sea. Its taste and the tranquility it has. To this day I have to go every day to see it. It calms me down," says Samira, who recently crossed the age of 60, with a strong face that has faith and calm, like In her kitchen movements.
Cooking that has not been in a hurry anywhere since she started cooking, an 11-year-old girl stands on a crate, in the kitchen of the house, chopping royal leaves.
* * *
The restaurant in Kuwait operated until 1990, "when Saddam Hussein came and made his rush."
Today, several cousins stayed there, most of the family in Jordan, and she and her sister live in Jaffa, where she came at the age of 18 to attend some family celebration and stayed.
Here she married a member of the al-Khattab family, from whom she had three sons and a daughter, from whom she divorced, and with whom she is still friends.
Zizu is the youngest of her children, and he insists on learning from her the genealogy of the family kitchen, and she insists on teaching it as she did in Beit al-Kalha, a family that loves spicy food.
And every morning he goes shopping, to work with fresh ingredients, even though his mother says that the test of good food, even falafel, is that it is delicious the next morning as well.
Meticulous classes and tests passed him until she was satisfied with the food he was preparing, and a few days ago he called excitedly to tell me that he had asked her to make the chickpeas "and she told me, 'Prepare yourself, you will become a champion'".
Samira says that her Zizu has a mind in his hands, only that he wants to hurry things up and she insists that they be done at their own pace, at the pace of the family's food.
"My child is the best. He's funny and hardworking and smart, he's 33 and he's single. Write it down. Maybe we'll find a bride."
In honor of stories that leave traces in food, in honor of families with respect for kitchens, in honor of kitchens that produce particularly good performance, in honor of women with strength and intellect in their hands, and in honor of mothers and sons, I bring you three recipes of samira.
Adas and Ra'a Alley (Lentil and Noodle Stew)
Ingredients:
√ 3 onions cut lengthwise and sliced into slices about half a centimeter thick
√ Olive oil for frying
√ Pot of lentil soup in the following recipe
√ 250 g wide noodles for soup
√ 1 large onion coarsely chopped
√ 80 g ground blush in good quality
To serve:
√ Chopped parsley
√ 6-12 halved radishes
√ 6 green onions
√ Pickles you like
Heat 1/3 cup olive oil, fry the onion slices until browned and transfer to absorbent paper.
Mix the chopped onion with the blush, without adding salt, which will not convert liquids.
Heat the lentil soup, add the noodles and cook while stirring gently, one that will prevent the noodles from settling and reaching the scorch at the bottom.
Stir like this until the noodles soften, something like 10 minutes.
When served, each diner receives a lentil stew with the noodles.
Place over a generous amount of fried onions and two mounds of onion teaspoon with blush, garnish with chopped parsley and serve with radishes, green onions and pickles.
Burning Adas (Lentil Soup)
A simple and great recipe for lentil soup that can be eaten this way, as it is, or passed on to a rich stew where noodles and other flavors join.
Stirring is important so that the bottom is not scorched.
The amount is good for 6 to 8 people, depending on hunger and the depth of serving plates.
Ingredients:
√ 500 g orange lentils soaked in tap water for half an hour
√ 4 tablespoons corn oil
√ 1 finely chopped onion
√ 1 teaspoon deleted turmeric
√ 1 teaspoon deleted cumin
√ 1 teaspoon salt
To serve:
√ Chopped parsley
√ 6 halved radishes
√ 6 green onions
√ A handful of olives
√ Pita pieces or old bread
deep-
fried
in oil
Drain the lentils, put in a pot, pour boiling water until the lentils are covered and cook over medium heat, stirring, until absorbed.
Repeat the operation until the lentils melt and are obtained in a liquid overnight.
Note that the operation takes about half an hour or more.
Add the spices, stir again, taste and adjust seasoning.
When served, each diner receives a plate of soup with a little chopped parsley and next to it a radish, green onions, olives, a quarter of a lemon and a few pieces of fried pita.
Romania
I am dying for this stew, which brings to the mouth sourness which, like the name of the dish, gives the pomegranate.
This is a dish associated with the joy of the poor at best.
In the early 20th century it was unthinkable to have pomegranates in December, but in recent years their season has been extended.
If you still did not get a fresh pomegranate, convert the amount in the recipe into 1/4 cup of pomegranate concentrate diluted in a glass of water.
The fermented peppers are sold in all markets and food stores that specialize in Arab cuisine, although in recent years and with the rise of the fermenting craft, they can also be found in quite a few writers.
The amount is good for 6 diners.
Ingredients:
√ 1 cup brown lentils
√ 2 eggplants cut into cubes
about 3 cm in size
√ 1 teaspoon salt
√ 1 teaspoon deleted cumin
√ Juice from 4 pomegranates (or 1/4 cup pomegranate concentrate diluted in a glass of water)
√ 2 tablespoons Cornflour
√ 6 crushed garlic cloves
√ 4 tablespoons olive oil
To serve:
√ 1 eggplant cut into cubes about 1 cm in size
√ 3 hot green peppers cut into half cm cm slices
√ 1 cup apple cider vinegar
√ Salt
√ 1 medium white onion peeled and cut into quarters
√ Fermented hot pepper
√
Give
olive oil
In a saucepan, add the eggplant and lentils and pour water until covered, about a liter.
On medium heat, in an open pot, cook for about half an hour or until the lentils soften and add the salt and cumin.
At the same time prepare the accompanying ingredients, but do not occasionally forget to stir in a pot, so that the bottom does not burn.
Pour into a pan olive oil about 2 cm high, fry the eggplant cubes until nicely browned and transfer to absorbent paper. Fry the hot pepper slices until golden and transfer to absorbent paper. Mix the apple cider vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon salt and pour over the onion quarters. When the lentils have softened, return to the pot. Mix the pomegranate juice with the cornflour, pour into the pot and cook for another 10 minutes on low heat.
Now, heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, brown the crushed garlic and be careful not to burn it. the smell is just turn off the heat and pour it on the oil that fried in the pan. stir for another minute, tasting, seasoning and turn off. Place stew calm down.
when serving, each diner gets deep dish in which the stew, and he fried eggplant, fried hot green pepper and pepper fermented All of this is accompanied by onions seasoned with vinegar, and possibly pita, to soak up all this winter.
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