Project 60 No 44 - A North African Meal

I am, as regular readers will know, somewhat resistant to what I unfairly class as 'funny foreign food;' this encompassing almost everything which hadn't passed my lips by the age of twelve. Why this should be so I do not know, but possibly it's something to do with how I was brought up, as my sister is much the same - although given that she doesn't even eat pasta I would say she was slightly worse. I am an enthusiastic consumer of Italian food.

 

This unwillingness to try new cuisines has been slightly eroded by our household addiction to several cooking competition programs on TV, not least My Kitchen Rules Australia, which is by far the most entertaining of them.  But there's always that conundrum; you can go to a restaurant which specialises in a new cuisine but if it turns out you don't like what you ordered,  that's an evening of embarrassment , not to mention probably quite a lot of money wasted.

 

However, I have often thought that I might enjoy north African/middle eastern food, which seemed to consist of meat, flatbread and dips - what's not to like? and by a happy coincidence this is what the training restaurant at the local college was putting on yesterday. They're doing a series of non-British meals as part of their training, as much in diversity as cooking. Going to the training restaurant is something which we've been meaning to get around to, literally  for years, so when I got the menu for this North African  venture it seemed ideal. There was a certain degree of choice, it all looked approachable even for a foreign food phobe like myself and of course it's relatively cheap.

 

So off we went. We started with Moroccan Lentil Soup. There was a choice of main course and of course the OH had a portion of everything; beef samosas, Algerian vegetable stew, turkey with garlic and rosemary and shish tawook chicken. I had the chicken and some of the vegetable stew, and there were flatbreads, salad, cous cous with roasted peppers, a raita and some mango chutney to go with it. For dessert the OH had Bala El Sham, which were sweet fritters with lemon syrup and I had Layali Lubnan which is a semolina based thing with rosewater and orange, with a sprinkle of pistachios on the top.

 

Three courses plus a soft drink each came to £18 for two which was a bargain. I didn't go a bundle on the raita, but at least I tried it.  I  have my doubts about the authenticity of the mango chutney and you wouldn't get offered pouring cream with the fritters in the middle east ... but apart from the raita it was all delicious. I think my favourite was the vegetable stew.

 

I daresay that it was a bit of a mish mash and that most Middle Eastern/North African countries have specific and possibly quite disparate cuisines, but as an introduction it was perfect; tasty, varied and cheap. Now when we're away I will be able to venture into a restaurant serving this sort of food quite happily - which is a good result in my book.

 

Unforunately I forgot my camera, so there are no pictures, which is a shame as most of looked as nice as it tasted!