We have a Whatsapp group, the Dallasheh Sisters, in which my sisters (and by that, I include my awesome cousin, Sana, and my cool sister-in-law, Ashwaq) and I keep in regular touch. It makes me feel connected, even when I'm so far away. We exchange kids' pictures, we ask for fashion advice, we send silly memes, rant, and ask for ideas what to cook and recipes. One time, my twin sister, being tired of thinking so hard what to cook every day, asked for suggestions and compiled a list. Today, as I stood at our awesome coop trying and failing to figure out the week's meals, I asked for that list. No, naaa, nope... yes, Mnazali Halabbiyeh. A meal that is such a special treat for me, especially because my awesome mom actually adapted it just for me.
The original dish is made with eggplants. But I'm allergic to eggplants (always bothered me but in recent years really unpleasant so I stopped eating it). Since I love the dish so much, mom started making it in two parts: eggplants and potatoes. And it's yummy!
So today, I made it, potatoes only. If eggplants are your thing, you can follow similar instructions (For eggplant lovers: Mom's tip: after you slice the eggplants, sprinkle them with salt generously, and let sit in a strainer for half an hour. Then rinse and dry before frying. That should take out most of the itchy mouth effect).
Ingredients:
1/2 Lb beef, lean cut (or you could make it easy on yourself and get ground beef)
1 medium onion
1/3 cup pine nuts
5 medium potatoes
1 cup chicken/beef stock
olive oil
Vegetable oil (about a cup, depending on your pan)
Salt and mixed spices (http://leenaskitchens.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-mixed-spices.html)
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400 Degrees F
Prepare the Beef mix:
- The easiest way to go about it is to use ground beef. But it tastes much better if you got a good tender cut of beef and cut it to very small pieces. I also used some lamb in the mix.
- Dice the onion into very small pieces (you can also grate it).
- heat about a table spoon of olive oil in a pan, add the onions cook until they become soft.
- Add the beef, salt and spices, and cook until almost fully cooked.
- Turn off the heat and add the pine nuts and mix.
Prepare the potatoes:
- Peel and cut the potatoes - you could have it as slices, or the better and more work option is to core a bit so you can fit more meat.
- I used a grapefruit spoon for this task, not bad!
- For frying the potatoes, I like to use a pot rather than a pan, to have less splatter. You need to have deep oil. Heat the vegetable oil until it is very hot and fry the potatoes, until half done.
- Take out and place on paper towels to soak up some of the oil.
Putting the dish together:
- Place half the fried potatoes in a deep oven-safe pan.
- Add as much meat inside each as you can fit.
- Here, in a classic Leena move, I had prepared a lot of extra beef. If you have extra, you can freeze and save for another time. Or, you could make another dish, stuffed tomatoes, like I did, see picture below.
- Cover the top of each with the remaining potatoes.
- Add the stock, it should cover the bottom of the pan and some of the food
- I never use store-bought stock, so usually when I have to make something with chicken, I'll save some of the extra stock.
- You can also just use water with salt and spices , maybe add a bouillon cube (I also don't use this, but my mother sometimes does)
- Cook for about 20 minutes, and check to see, I like food cooked really really well, so I kept it longer!
And here are the stuffed tomatoes!
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