I have been looking for a creative way to incorporate some new recipes into my recipe rotation, so browsing the web one day, I came across a website that will sell you a kit for $20 with recipes and game ideas for dates from around the world. A very neat idea, but as I was glancing through their material, I didn't like several of the "games"/activities they had for you to do, and a few of the recipes called for ingredients I had never heard of and didn't know where to shop for them..so I thought: "why pay for it when I could make my own date night agenda and hand pick recipes and games from the worldwide knowledge that is the Internet? Why not customize my own date night with my husband (and brother-in-law) to take us to another country for an evening?" Let's expand our horizons and try some different foods!
So, that's what I did. Throughout our food adventure, I'll be sharing the recipes and letting you know whether I/we liked them or not. Also, if anyone else wants to join us and do your own "dates around the world" adventure, you will have our ideas to build on.
Alright, now that you have the background story, let's get to it.
Welcome, to Egypt! ...er..my kitchen.
The first thing I did when deciding which country to do first, was to find a recipe that didn't require a trip to the World Market. Luckily for me, I had everything I needed for this dinner already in my kitchen! (Minus the ground beef, which I went and bought fresh from the store earlier tonight. Our grocery store also had the ground lamb the recipe called for...but it was nearly triple the price as the ground beef so I didn't buy it) I wanted to choose something that was traditional to Egypt, but also not too crazy.
Dinner's main dish and recipe:
Beef Kofta
Ingredients:
- 1 pound Ground Beef
- 1/4 pound Ground Lamb (Optional- If not using lamb, then use additional ground beef)
- 1/4-1/2 cup minced parsley
- (I used about 1/4 cup, as we had a pound of ground beef instead of the pound and a half)
- 1 grated small onion
- 2 minced garlic (or...about a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt)
- 1 T salt
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. Cumin powder
- 1 tsp. Nutmeg
(I should have compensated and used less nutmeg considering I had less beef than the recipe called for. But that's ok, I didn't compensate anything else considering, and it ended up tasting alright..just a lot of nutmeg flavor)
Directions:
- Mix the onion and garlic with the spices and let sit in room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Add the meat and parsley and mix well. Shape the meat into kofta shapes (I don't know how to describe the shape.. Kind of like a sausage, but 1/3 of the size?)
- Spray the bottom of a large pan with olive oil. Heat the pan over medium high heat.
- When the pan is hot, add the koftas and pan fry on all sides. Lower the heat and cover the pan.
- Let cook for 5 minutes. Then uncover the pan and let any liquid evaporate.
Traditionally, Kofta is served on a skewer, but..I have a little bit of a distaste for skewers now.. ever since last year when I got a bamboo splinter in my mouth from eating a kabob. So, ours were eaten with forks.
To go with the beef, I made a brown rice concoction (or you can just buy Beef Flavored Rice-A-Roni for a dollar), and (not pictured) we also had some corn.
For dessert, I decided to get a little creative, and made just some simple rice krispy treats (I know, NOT Egyptian), and while they were still warm, I shaped them into a pyramid.
These are Micah's and my name cards. Let's take a moment to admire my bird. I am pretty proud of myself...I can't draw at all, so I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. I only had four index cards and had to use three of them, so there wasn't much extra for me to mess up on.
Before dinner I had searched "egyptian music" on youtube and found a video someone had posted that had an hour's worth of Arabic instrumental music, so during dinner I had that playing softly in the background and overall...I'd say it went over pretty well. All three of us had empty plates at the end and I'm glad I got to try a new recipe.
I didn't have a game to play with this particular date night, though some of the upcoming countries do have games to play after dinner.
Next time, I will try to do a better job of taking pictures!
I'm pretty sure I know which country is coming next...but just incase I change my mind, I'll keep it a secret :)
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