Baplo بابلوه - Omani Fish Soup

In Germany when I was trying to find the recipe for 'Baplo', Google responded: "Do you mean Pablo?" ... But no, I didn't want to know how to cook a Spanish guy. Thankfully, mother was most heplful and waited till I got the camera to record the steps of cooking this famous Omani dish.

Baplo is an Omani dish, but it's most famously cooked by Baluchi and Lawati people, as a Baluch I'd say it's a Baluchi dish, but then I remember my Lawati classmate saying that it's Lawati. Who records the history of recipes in this region anyway... and no one's in the mood for a tribal conflict over fish soup. ;)

So let's get this recipe started!

INGREDIENTS:

- Water
- Full Tspn. Tummeric Powder (Picture)
- Ful Tspn. Salt (Picture)
- Sliced onion
- 4 Green chilli peppers
- Fish (Picture of how much we put)
- 4 Lemons
- Two crushed garlic cloves

PREPARATION:

- Heat water on the stove, then add a full teaspoon of Tummeric powder.
- Toss in the sliced onions.
- Toss in the green chillis.
- Toss in the fish. (Yes, a lot of tossing.)
- Add the full teaspoon of salt ... wait for two minutes then add the crushed garlic cloves. (Picture)

- Let it all cook, once the fish is done, turn off the fire and squeeze the lemons, lemons are the most important part of the whole recipe and give Baplo it's special sour flavour.

TIP: Do NOT add the lemon juice until AFTER it's cooked and OFF the stove, or the lemon juice will not taste nice and ruin the whole dish. + Serve with white rice.

Um Rabia's Homemade Shawarma (Preparation)

So now to prepare the Shawarma you need to prepare 1) The chicken ... 2) The Shawarma Sauce (Tahina) ... 3) The sandwich itself.

1) Preparing the Chicken:

1- Cut the chicken into very small cubes and leave aside.
2- Put the garlic, onions, ginger and a little bit of water in a blender until it turns into a paste.





3- Put all the above on the chicken and add salt, mixed spices, Sammaq (pomegranate seeds), vinegar and olive oil and let the chicken marinate for 4 hours (the more the better).

4- After it is marinated cook it in a pan WITHOUT adding any extra oil, the olive oil alone is enough, and the chicken will just cook in its water.

5- Take the chicken off the fire right before all the water evaporates, it’s nice to keep it a little moist.

2) Preparing the Tahina sauce:

Just mix it all the ingredients together!

Now that you’ve got it all ready, here’s how to
3) Prepare the shawarma for serving:

Get the Lebanese bread and spread the Shawarma sauce over the bread, add the chicken, lettuce and French fries … and you’re done! Other ideas is adding Jalapenos, pickles, or chilli sauce – but that’s up to you to improvise.

Hope it turns out well, I’ll try to take pictures next time my mother makes the shawarma so I could share.

Any questions, feel free to post them in the comments box.

Um Rabia's Homemade Shawarma (Ingredients)

My aunt Um Rabia has been making this shawarma for years and passed the recipe on to my mother. You can make 10 Shawarma’s at a time if you use the small lebanese bread, so this recipe is great for family gatherings and picnics.

This post will include the ingredients only, the post coming after this will be on how to prepare it, Inshallah.


For Chicken:

500g - Chicken breast (boneless)
4 Tbsp - Vinegar
2 Tsp - Salt
1 Tbsp – Mixed Spices
2 Tbsp – Crushed Dried Pomegranate seeds (Picture: Sammaq)
4 - Garlic cloves
3 - Medium Onions
Medium-sized Fresh ginger (Can't explain size, so here's a pic.)
3 Tbsp – Olive Oil

For Shawarma Tahina Sauce:

4 Tbsp - Yoghurt (big chunks at a time)
2 Tbsp - Tahina (Ground Sesame, it's liquid, on the left is a picture of the one we bought)
½ teasp – Salt
1 Lemon
½ teasp – Garlic powder

Other items needed:

- Preferably Lebanese bread (Pita bread)
- Lettuce (cut well)
- French fries
- Mayonaise (If you didn’t want to make the Shawarma sauce, mayo will do!)

Coming: Preparation of Um Rabia's Homemade Shawarma...

Fresh Lemon & Mint Juice

I've always loved Lemon & Mint Juice, but the ones I get from cafeterias outside are too sugary for my taste. Although I have to look this up to be sure, but I think it's a mediterranean juice, because I always associated it with the Northern Arabian dialect "Baddek 3aseer lamoon o n3naa3?" (Would you like Lemon and Mint Juice?)

Anyway! Here'goes, the first recipe I'm sharing.

WHAT YOU NEED:

- 4 Lemons.

- Two handfulls of mint leaves (Picture)

- Water

- Sugar or Salt (Depends on what you like it with)

PREPARATION:

In a blender, throw in the mint leaves (depending on your blender the mint leaves either get coarsly chopped or harshly minced - today I used a blender that turned the mint into paste!) ...

Now you have four lemons, right? .... Take on of them, cut in quarters and throw it in the blender as well - TRUST ME ON THIS! It adds a nice flavour to it (This was Dad's recommendation and it turned out great.)

Add half a glass of water, it helps the blender do its job.

After the mint is chopped in the blender, chuck it in a big jug, then add water till you feel that it's enough (every person has a different taste, my sister likes less water than I do).

Squeeze the other three lemons in the jug, add more lemons if you like a more sour taste to your Mint Lemonade.

And that's it. It's done! ... Add salt, or sugar. Throw in an ice cube and enjoy.

Coming Recipe: Um Rabia's Homemade Chicken Shawarma ~ Noora

Welcome In

Yummy Home-made Doughnut Burgers!

Like cooking but feel lazy when you read that preparation of a delicious dish takes 2-3 hours? Found a great recipe but then read weird ingredients you never knew existed and don't know how to find? Like Fish n Chips? Don't know how to read recipes off fancy books because they deal with litres and grams instead of big spoon/small spoon? Yes? What are you my twin?

The actual reason I decided to open this blog was because allrecipes.com didn't confirm my shawarma recipe in time before I lost my patience. So there, I opened my own blog.

Hang around, follow, I'll be posting easy recipes when I find them!

Love,
Noora

P.S: Doughnut burger was a joke. It's off the internet.