My Taste Buds don't lie!

Kaak Zaman: best off-the-shelf kaak you can have!

by Celine Chami • Featured, Must-Try Foods • Tags: Lebanese food, Lebanon

I have been a raving fan of Kaak Zaman ever since I discovered this brand a couple of years ago. My friend (who is a foodie just like me), brought me few boxes and insisted I tried them, and it was a love story ever since.

Every Kaak Zaman product is oat-based. They make sweet and savory kaak that are out of this world.

Their savory kaak range from oat crackers with thyme, to oat crackers with thyme & black olives, and multi-cereal kaak with chia seeds.

Their sweet kaak selection is equally interesting, with carob molasses oat-based kaak, orange kaak, dark chocolate kaak and dates paste kaak. While the sweet ones can be enjoyed as a morning or an afternoon snack, their savory ones are perfect for a light breakfast with Labneh or white cheese and cucumbers.

What I love about this brand – other than the taste, obviously – is that every time I check the ingredients, there is no mention of sugar whatsoever. In fact, they keep repeating on their labels that their products are free from eggs, sugar, ghee, butter, milk and any preservatives. With the exception of their dark chocolate cookies, where they mention a 2% sugar, every other product is extremely healthy and incredibly delicious!

Generally, you can find them in a lot of supermarkets, but I am adding here their phone number in case you wish to get in contact: 03614260.

The only thing you should add to rez 3a djej (rice with chicken) is roasted almonds

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by Celine Chami • Tips

Rez 3a djej (Oriental rice with chicken) is a famous Lebanese dish that is made mostly in occasions or for the Sunday family lunch. It generally comes topped with roasted pine nuts, but some people add other kernels like cashews or almonds as well.

With the economic crisis that has hit Lebanon, prices have soared everywhere and the KG of pine nuts has ridiculously increased to 200,000 LBP and sometimes even more. But the truth is, regardless of whether you can afford to add pine nuts to rez 3a djej or not, it has no value whatsoever and doesn’t add anything in terms of taste or texture to the dish. Most people also mix the nuts with the rice, so they equally lose whatever crunch they had.

My advice is to replace pine nuts with roasted almonds. Plain and simple. Almonds are not very expensive to start with – they cost about 50,000 LBP per KG. And they taste really good with rice, because roasting them brings their flavor out. And please, for the love of good food, DO NOT mix them with the rice because they lose their crunch as well as their taste. Just put a small amount of vegetable oil in a pan and roast them slowly on low heat. Once done, leave them on a tissue to dry the oil, and only add them on top of the rice platter – or as a side that people can add in their own plates.

Voila, now you have a great tasting dish that is best enjoyed with either a lettuce/lemon/oil salad or pickled cucumbers. Bon appétit!

I took a trip down memory lane last night…

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by Celine Chami • Featured

I haven’t blogged for the past two years. The main reason was that I got pregnant so I could not smell food, then I delivered twins so I had no time to think about food.

Then time passed by and I started thinking that maybe people were no longer interested in traditional blogs, so I quit the idea altogether.

But then last night I decided to go back and read my blog posts. I don’t know why I did this, maybe because I had earlier asked my husband to take down my blog and he showed me that it’s still getting visits until today, then advised me to keep it just in case.

While checking the different blog posts, I also started reading some of the comments I kept receiving. And it all made me realize why I started blogging in the first place.

You see, most bloggers quit because people stopped reading. But I did not originally start blogging to be read – that’s the side effect only. I started this blog because I love writing and I love food, and it was a great way for me to combine my two passions.

I know it is harder today to keep writing about food – most restaurants are closed or on the way to close. We are living through the most difficult times in Lebanon and maybe it is not the right timing. But when is it ever?

I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep a regular pace of writing. I don’t know if I can still find interesting topics to share with you. But I have always made it a point to shed the light on Lebanese jewels, whether small shops making authentic food, or small brands that are making a difference, or simply great food combinations found in Lebanon.

So here I am, a little nervous about trying to resume all of this, but determined to give it a shot. And I have each and every person who ever read my blog or sent me a mail or commented on one of my posts to thank. I even have a student who gifted me this cutting board a while back in the hope that I would resume writing (thanks Georges! :)).

I am all in. Will you be here along the journey?

Behold, for I just had the best olive bread I’ve ever tasted in my life

by Celine Chami • Must-Try Foods • Tags: food, Olive bread

I just love discovering new food experiences that randomly come across me and that are a true revelation. It is not often that this happens, so when it does, I have to write about it because people who make great food deserve to be heard of.

I’ve recently had this experience when my dear Priscilla told me that her mom’s friend makes olive bread, if we ever wanted to try it. And then one day, for some celebration, Priscilla brought some to the office with her. It comes in the shape of a crown, it’s soft and moist, and it smells like heaven with notes of thyme, olives and vanilla.

And then you taste it. What can I say about its taste? Where do I start? There are sweet milky notes that combine to perfection with the thyme. The dough has the right amount of salt and the olives bring the earthy notes that make for a perfect finish. It is simply incredible. It’s like eating a cake that’s not a cake and you get to enjoy it with Labneh (my favorite), cheese or zaatar. Even if you do not wish to add anything to it, it’s still as delicious and you simply cannot stop eating it. I have been to many, many restaurants in Lebanon and around the world and believe me when I say this is the best olive bread I’ve ever tasted in my life.

Of course, I wasn’t going to write a blog post about it and not leave you with the contact details of the lady who makes it. Her name is Chantal Feghali and you can reach her on 03589837. She also makes the same but replaces the olives with cheese, chocolate or cinnamon. I have yet to taste these variations, but I can assure you that the olive bread will be a revelation for you, just as it was for me.

Dear restaurants: for the love of good food, less creativity, more taste

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by Celine Chami • Tips • Tags: food, restaurants

This blog post has been on my mind for some time, but I didn’t quite know how to express what I wanted to say in a proper way. I’m still not sure I can, but it is very important that I get it out of my system :).

I have been very disappointed by my overall restaurants experience lately. There is no specific restaurant I am talking about and I am in no way reviewing any, but I would like to address restaurants in general, especially those new places that scream modernism in every aspect from décor to comfort, service and especially the food. You get the menu and just marvel at the names of the dishes and what is supposed to be inside them. But then you get to the tasting part and that’s where the whole disappointment is. I’m a big, big fan of balancing food and selecting ingredients in their right dose for the entire dish to have a harmonious taste. And this is what these new restaurants, probably in their “nouvelle cuisine” concepts, are missing. You see, when I want to eat chicken fajitas, I want to taste the chicken at some point and not be overwhelmed with the spices. When I want to have a guacamole entrée, I want my avocado to be fresh and to taste good, rather than be drowned in tomatoes and whatever other ingredients are in there. When I want to eat a salad, I need to recognize every ingredient through its texture, taste and more importantly, through how well it goes with other ingredients.

Sadly, it seems to me that restaurants are recreating picture-perfect dishes that look great on Instagram and visually seduce younger generations, but with no real taste that follows the dish’s presentation. I go to a place knowing in advance what to order because I’ve seen the pictures, and I can assure you that most of the time, the taste is bland, deceiving or simply imbalanced. I wish the chefs would simply ease it down on the creativity and focus on the taste instead by simplifying their recipes and valuing good, harmonious ingredients that go well together.

Photo by Katie Smith on Unsplash