Palestinian maklouba recipe
Welcome in Palestine
My name is Zuhair
I come from the Dheisheh Refugee Camp, in Bethlehem
Today we are going to cook Makluba
a very famous dish in Palestine
a traditional dish
All Palestinians cook it
specially when guests come, they like to offer it
And I hope you like it
Because we like it and enjoy cooking it
Welcome to the Palestinian kitchen
The most important thing you need is a chicken
Before we use it, we clean it well
We start by frying the vegetables
While we fry, we are going to cook the chicken with the spices we have
We are going to wait while the chicken is ready
All the vegetables are ready: the potatoes, carrots...
...all the vegetables we have fried already
We have also prepared the rice. We washed it and left it with water 10 min
We are going to wait until it is really clean
We have fried the vegetables
and we are wating for the chicken to cook
Now, we are going to prepare the salad
with tomatoes and cucumber, parsley and mint
we are going to prepare it now
we prepare it now because we have the time
we cut the tomatoes
in the salad you can put different vegetables
onions, garlic, mint, green pepper many different kinds of vegetables
We have prepared the salad
now we are going to prepare the rice, with spices and vermicelli
we fry the vermicelly before the chicken is cooked
This vermicelly is for the rice
We use corn oil or sunflower oil not olive oil
We wash the rice well
We are going to put spices on the rice
We put a bit of salt and curcuma
We cooked the chicken
and know we are going to cook the Makluba
We need to take the chicken from the soup
We are going to take the vegetables and put them in the pot
the ones we fried
we fried them and prepared them already
like this
now we put the chicken
we need to take away the onion and the spices
We put the vegetables on the chicken
now we put the rice
and now we add the soup
We are going to see if it has enough salt
We are going to leave the gas strong
When it starts boiling, we lower the gas, and it's going to taste delicious
You are going to love it. Bon Appetit!
After cutting the tomatoes and the cucumber,
we are going to prepare the parsley and the mint
we are going to prepare the salad now
we put some salt, not much
Here in Palestine we use a lot of olive oil
In every dish there is olive oil
The problem is the occupation does not let us grow olive trees
they have cut down trees and they do not allow the peasants to work their land
So a third of the Palestinian olives trees have been cut
by Israeli bulldozers, so now we have become importers and not exporters
Now they grow the oil and say it is for the Jews, the Israelis
We are going to put some olive oil, to give it a delicious taste
and yoghurt! we eat our Makluba with salad and yoghurt
So it is a really full dish
But I wanted to tell you something
Makluba is not an everyday dish
Maybe once a week, or once a month
For it is costly and the economic situation of Palestinians is difficult
So we cant cook it every day.
When there is a holiday for Palestinians, for example
On a friday, and the whole family is at home
and we will cook makluba and the children are happy
Because we cooked chicken, rice, salat, yoghurt
It is a big meal for the Palestinian children
Now the makluba is boiling
as you can see, and we lower the gas
Now it needs low gas to cook
After it starts boiling, we leave it for 30 min
And then it is ready to eat
Now the makluba is ready
and we are going to put it on the big dish here
Here is the makluba, bon appetit!
It is going to be really delicious, my private recipe is very good!
Enjoy
Welcome in Palestine