The BEST CREAMY Tahini Salad of ever!

So remember I said I come from a family of traditions... well, this is one of them!  My family goes all out for Sunday brunch with all the usual Middle Eastern suspects; jams, cheeses, fava bean salad (ful mdamas), chickpea yogurt dish (tisi'ya// fetay), eggs, walnut stuffed pickled eggplants (makdoos), olives, and pita bread galore.  I remember my dad would always cut the pita bread into half circles and make us fava bean salad pita sandwiches drizzled with yogurt (so. friggin. good btw).  So when my mom would make breakfast, she would make this tahini salad and as a separate brunch dish she would make the fava bean salad which is called Ful.  The ful dish is made up of basically this tahini salad plus boiled fava beans and more olive oil.   My siblings and I never knew the name of this particular tahini salad so we would always beg my mom to make it and refer to it as, the ful without the ful salad.  

So I present to you the "ful without the ful salad".   There was a period where I would eat this every single day.  The way the tahini lemon sauce marrys the crunch cucumber and juicy tomatoes is just out of this world.  

I can eat this salad on its own but its also great served with chicken kabobs or lamp chops or really anything. 

This dressing is everything.  Make some and store for later! 

It's important to toss the salad because you want all the flavors to combine with the tomatoes.  You want the onions to release their flavors as well.  I've been trying to stay away from consuming too much bread (very difficult because bread is def one of my weaknesses) so I eat this salad as is, but it's actually good with warm pita bread.  Feel free to add more or less of whatever you like.  My sister loves cucumbers so she usually adds way more cucumbers, I like it more lemony so I'll add more lemon.  Don't be afraid to adjust to your liking! 

INGREDIENTS

2 cups cherry tomato or 2 Tomatos diced

2 Cucumbers diced

1/2 Red onion diced

3 Tablespoons tahini

Juice of 1 lemon

2 Tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon Dried Mint

Salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Dice all the ingredients and place into a bowl

Wisk together Tahini, Lemon, Olive Oil, Dried Mint, & Salt

Toss together and serve!

Kofta Tahini

THERES MORE TO DO WITH TAHINI THEN MAKE HUMMUS!  I feel like with all the hummus recipes out there I even forget that we use tahini for so much more then just hummus!  And this is one of those things, kthanksbye. 

But seriously, tahini is one of those things that makes me laugh because my mom would have to climb mountains and cross rivers to go to a little ethnic store over a half hour away (thank God my local supermarket carries it now haha) that would import this and we were the only kids in the entire neighborhood that even knew what it was.  She would always do her ethnic grocery shopping on Saturdays because that was when the pita bread was fresh but also because my dad wanted to go too, he's a secret foodie.  It was like a family field trip and we would stock up on fresh pita bread, tahini, all kinds of fresh produce, different cuts of meats, an assortment of middle eastern cheeses and olives.  We would come back home with bags of groceries and I remember my siblings and I not even waiting until the groceries have been put away to stuff our faces with fresh pita sandwiches my mom would make on the fly.   It would be happy chaos in the kitchen as everyone is rummaging through bags trying to figure out what they want to eat.  My mom, the savior that she is, would somehow make this tahini sauce in minutes without anyone even noticing and hand everyone a fresh falafel sandwich using the crispy cucumber and fresh tomatoes we just got drizzled with the tahini sauce, or a Nabulsi cheese with crunchy green pepper and fresh tarragon wrapped in warm pita.  

Now, it's like the world has discovered our little kitchen gem and it makes me smile like ya, I knew about that before I was even born, welcome to the club :)  In the Middle East, they use tahini to make hummus, sauce, breakfast, cookies, cakes, the list goes on.   I tend to make a lot of tomato and eggplant based dishes I'm realizing and when I want to change it up I usually go Asian or this dish.

The sauce is this amazing yogurt based tahini lemony based sauce that like I mention already, we use for falafel sandwiches, shawerma meat sandwiches (we always use a garlic sauce for the chicken shawerma sandwich), fava bean breakfast dish called foul mddamas or on a potato dish.  Usually everytime I make this I'll end up with extra sauce (intentionally) which I store in tuber ware and I'll make falafel the next day and use the leftover sauce.  Done and Done.  But no joke, it might be one of my all time favorite sauces because its so full of flavor yet feels light and smooth.

In fact, I posted and raved about the amazing sauce right here http://www.sweetpillar.com/blog/2015/10/7/zaatar-crusted-shrimp-with-lemon-tahini-drizzle

This dish is kofta skewers baked with a yogurt tahini sauce and then topped with potatoes.  Some people opt to not spend the extra time making little kofta skewers and instead just pressing it onto the pyrex so its one giant kofta pizza basically and then topped with the sauce and potatoes.

I like the addition of the potatoes because it gives the dish an additional texture.  If you notice I leave the skin on the potatoes because most of the nutrients of the potatoes is actually in the skin so I just scrub them really well and leave them on but you can remove the skin or remove the entire potato addition from the dish if you don't like potatoes.  

I first put parsley and onions in the processor so all the juices come out and can be absorbed by the meat.  I then add the spices and parsley onion mixture.  Usually I add this amazing Turkish spice blend that I purchased at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul a few years ago but that has since finished and I don't even know the name of it to purchase more.   When I bought it they put it in a little plastic bag which I transferred to a mason jar and that was it.  No name, no label.  I've tried to hunt it down but haven't found anything comparable.  So if anyone can help, let me know!  But anyway since I've departed ways with my Turkish blend I use a middle eastern all spice which is a mix of cumin, coriander, paprika, etc.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb Ground beef (or lamb - if using lamb combine it with beef otherwise it's too heavy)

1 Small onion

2 Garlic clove

1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon All Spice (if you cannot find middle eastern all spice you can mix 1/2 teaspoon of each ground cinnamon, paprika, cumin, ground cloves, nutmeg & coriander)

Salt

Pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350

Combine all the ingredients for the yogurt tahini sauce in a food processor and set aside (see link for previous post with ingredients for sauce)

If frying potatoes, heat up vegetable oil and fry at this point and set aside

If baking potatoes, put potatoes on baking sheet and drizzle with oil and put in the oven for 10-12 minutes

In food processor pulse onion, parsley, and garlic

Add onion mixture to ground beef along with spices, salt and pepper

Mix with your hands long enough for all the flavors to really mix together (1-2 minutes)

Using your hands make round balls then press them so they elong and are fingerlike length and form kabob shape

Using either vegetable oil or sunflower oil sautee the kabobs in a frying pan. Sautee them about 5-6 minutes so they are brown on the outside but still slightly rare on the inside (we're going to put them back in the oven so you don't want them to overcook but instead finish cooking in the oven)

Place the kabobs on a pyrex

Pour the tahini yogurt sauce over the kabobs and top with potatoes and put in the oven for 5-7 minutes

Garnish with parsley, paprika, and/or pine nuts

Serve with rice or pita bread

Zaatar Crusted Shrimp with Lemon Tahini Drizzle

You have no idea the high that I get after my husband gives me the thumbs up after trying something that I "created" in the kitchen!  This was one of those highs.   

So what ha happened was, I met up with a friend, a fellow mom foodie that thinks about food just as much if not more than I do to talk about work, seriously.  We spent about 2 hours talking about the kids and food, just kidding it was pretty much all food and sweet pillar, work, you know.  Zaatar came up in the conversation.  That was that.  

I came home, saw the shrimp I got for a lemon shrimp pasta dish I was planning on making.  Lightbulb.  Zaatar from my subconscious jumped out, the shrimp was right in front of my face, boom bam, next thing I know I'm creating Zaatar crusted shrimp with lemon tahini drizzle.

I thought it tasted great and I love that it was so different.  My mom and grandmother, both the best chefs I've ever known literally make so much food on a daily basis for the family, the kids, and non stop guests it's as if they were running catering businesses.  My mom makes and experiments with food all the time and cooks every cuisine under the sun, but when it comes to Arabic food she is NOT comfortable experimenting.  If I ever consulted with her about making zaatar crusted shrimp she would have freaked out, gave me a look of confusion, and would've just said in arabic "we just don't do that.  we don't eat zaatar and shrimp.  It's just not done."  There is one way to eat zaatar and its taking pita bread, dipping it in a bowl of olive oil then a bowl of zaatar and then sipping tea.  I'll update this post and tell you her reaction once I show her the pictures and tell her what I did.  Insert emoticon of monkey covering his face here.  haha. 

So this is actually pretty easy to make.  The lemon tahini sauce is used for multiple dishes so it's definitely a recipe to hold on to and know how to access later.  Ayla eats this sauce with just pita bread, she loves it so much.  I made the shrimp the same way I would if I was making buffalo shrimp or coconut crusted shrimp and then I just drizzled the zaatar marinade at the end.  The challenge is making the zaatar wet enough to stick on to the shrimp.

INGREDIENTS for TAHINI LEMON SAUCE

• 1/4 cup tahini
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup water
• salt

INSTRUCTIONS for TAHINI LEMON SAUCE

• whisk all ingredients together
• As simple as that

TIP:

• If it is too pasty, add more water until desired consistency is achieved
• If you don't taste the lemon burst of flavor, add more
• I tend to use a lot of garlic, so feel free to add more or less depending on how you like it

INGREDIENTS for ZAATAR CRUSTED SHRIMP

• Egg
• Flour
• 8 Raw Shrimp, deveined
• 1/4 cup Zaatar
• 2 Tbl Olive oil
• Frying oil (I used vegetable)

INSTRUCTIONS for ZAATAR CRUSTED SHRIMP

• Create an assembly line by whisking egg and a little bit of water in one bowl, flour in the second bowl and shrimp in a third.
• Start by dipping the shrimp in the egg mixture then the flour
• Refrigerate while creating the zaatar mix and heating the frying oil
• Once the oil has heated, fry the shrimp for 2-3 minutes
• Remove and place on a paper towel to remove excess oil
• Mix zaatar and olive oil 
• Drizzle on shrimp
• Done and Done!