I think it was in 2010 that I did a TV series called Al Chef Yaktachef, meaning the Chef Discovers. I co-presented it with a wonderful poet, Tareq al-Mehyass, who also acted as my guide to the culinary wonders of the UAE. We toured the seven Emirates in search of typical Emirati dishes, which I then adapted in our studio kitchen, which was set up in the open air in Abu Dhabi’s heritage centre (if I remember correctly).
One day, we filmed in an amazing catering kitchen in Al-Ayn, and as I watched the cooks prepare an amazing camel feast, I decided that I really needed to spend time with them to learn more about Emirati dishes in order to adapt them. I had already had a taste of Emirati cuisine just before we started filming. I had been kindly invited by wonderful Sheikha Bodour al-Qasimi on an amazing culinary tour to both see the preparation of and taste practically the whole range of Emirati dishes, both in Sharjah’s heritage centre and at Sheikha Bodour’s grandmother’s house in Khorfakkan. Still, I thought that spending a few days in the catering kitchen watching the cooks as they prepared more Emirati dishes was what I needed. Fortunately, the producers agreed and made it happen.
It was in that kitchen that I got my first taste of camel hump, which set me on a long journey chasing it that finally ended up with me cooking my own (again thanks to Sheikha Bodour) and writing about it for Lucky Peach and eventually in Feast — I had already blogged my first taste when it went mini viral thanks to the late Jonathan Gold who wrote about my post; we then had a plan to make camel hump lardo but it never happened!). It was also in that kitchen that I learned how to prepare the Emirati biryani in the picture above. Biryani is a layered rice dish with endless variations, most of which are with meat but this one is vegetarian and I often serve it with roast lamb which I marinate in either saffron yoghurt or an amazingly heady Emirati marinade that also has rose water. By the way, you can finish this biryani with a sprinkling of rose water to give it a wonderful fragrance as you bring it to the table.
Below is a collage of some of my mise en place and the beginning of the sauce, which you can prepare well ahead to keep in the fridge or freezer so that you only have to parboil the rice before layering it with the sauce and letting it steam on the day.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Belly Dancer in the Kitchen with Anissa Helou to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.