Char the pepper! Diane Shammas shares her secret maftoul and muhammara recipes

Maftoul with roasted butternut Squash. (Photo: Lisa Ann)

After intriguing us with a comment she posted recently, Dr. Diane Shammas offered to share her maftoul (couscous) recipe. She bragged, we asked, and now we can all have Diane’s maftoul. And that’s not all. “I also added muhammara, which I have perfected after many years,” she writes. Muhammara is a red pepper dip.

At my holiday parties and family dinners I made both these dishes and people wanted the recipes especially the butternut squash maftoul one.

The recipes:

I. Maftoul (Couscous) with Roasted Butternut Squash, Parsley, Mint, Pine nuts, Apples, Feta and Spices

The original recipe by Lisa Ann states a serving of 6 but she used a medium-sized butternut squash. I seem to be only able to find the large variety fresh. If you use the whole butternut squash it makes 12 servings or more depending on the serving size. If you buy a whole large butternut squash and want to use all of it, add a 1/4 cup or extra tablespoon to the ingredients. I also added to the recipe spices of turmeric and cumin, which Lisa Ann did not include.

I also am providing a link on how to cut and peel butternut squash as it is tricky. Be careful cutting and carving the squash. The second time around making this recipe I cut my index finger pretty badly even though I was careful and followed the carving instructions –microwaving the whole butternut squash for 3 minutes does help. The contributor to carving a butternut squash found the same problem as I did even using the sharpest vegetable peeler, as other squash carving sites recommend; that is why Morgan O’Connor recommends using a long thin sharp knife on a sturdy carving board with a silicone mat (As O’Connor recommends at ehow.com, you can always buy butternut squash cubes at stores like Trader Joe’s but you sacrifice freshness).

Also, as instructed, a grapefruit knife, which I use all the time, is a simple way to de-seed the squash.

Ingredients for 6 servings (using a medium butternut squash)

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons lemon zest
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (approximately 2 medium lemons)
1 medium butternut squash (or large if you can’t find medium) peeled and seeded, cut into 1/4 inch –dice
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
1 cup of maftoul

I buy organic Palestinian maftoul (not Israeli couscous) at Williams Sonoma because you are supporting the Palestinian Fair Trade Association. If you can’t find a Williams Sonoma or your local Williams Sonoma does not carry it, Canaan Fair Trade is the distributor, and located in Madison, Wisconsin.

Maftoul is composed of whole wheat flour and bulgur (Arabic: burghul). Bulgur is made from different wheat grains (duram wheat), partially boiled and dried. Bulgur comes in sizes 0 to 4. It also is used in kibbeh, tabbouli and some rice pilaf recipes.

Ingredients continued:

2 cinnamon sticks
1 dried bay leaf
2 star anise
1 chopped fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 Granny Smith apple, diced (approximately 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup fresh chopped mint
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (if you are making for a vegan can leave out, but it doesn’t taste as good in my opinion)
Dash of turmeric (or if using a whole large butternut squash I put in a tablespoon)
1 -3 teaspoons of cumin (I used a tablespoon as I like the taste and with a large squash)

Cooking Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Toss squash with 2 T olive oil and salt to taste in large baking pan and spread in a single layer. I am always sparing with the salt as I let the guests or family members add more if they want. Roast in oven for 15 minutes until squash is just tender and transfer to a separate bowl. If you have a roasting pan like Le Creuset, the results are better.

3. Cook onion in 1 T olive oil in skillet over medium heat stirring occasionally until golden brown and add to bowl with the squash.

4. Add star anise, bay leaf, cinnamon sticks and vegetable broth to a pot and bring to a boil. Add maftoul, turmeric and cumin and reduce heat to a simmer then cook for approximately 12 minutes until maftoul is tender. Remove star anise, bay leave, and cinnamon sticks, then add couscous to squash and onions in the bowl.

5. Add orange juice, lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley, pine nuts, cranberries, apples, mint and feta to the bowl with squash and onions. Toss and serve at room temperature.

This dish lasts for a few days and it is even better after a day.

Muhammara. (Photo: Tony Tahhan)

II. Muhammara

Muhammara is a Syrian dip that you can also use as a relish for kebabs and shish tawook (grilled chicken), as the Turkish people do. After many trials of making it, either from recipes friends gave me, or retrieved from the internet, it always was missing the right spicy flavor and nutty texture like Moishe’s in the Farmer’s Market at 3rd and Fairfax in Los Angeles. Moishe is actually a Lebanese Armenian that sells Middle Eastern delicacies from his stall at the Farmer’s Market.

The following is the recipe that I adapted from a Lebanese American woman’s website, Taste of Beirut. Using crushed Aleppo pepper and adding extra walnuts at the end of mixing all the ingredients (not originally included in the recipe) seems to do the trick. My cousin’s wife, Rasha, who originally is from Syria, contributed to the recipe by advising me to add the walnuts last while passing the mixture through the food processor.

Ingredients

3 large red bell peppers
4 cloves of garlic (I especially like garlic so I add a couple more)
Walnuts, 1.8 ounces or little less than a 1/4 cup
Ground cumin, 3/4 teaspoon (again I like cumin so I would put in one teaspoon or more if you like)
Pomegranate molasses, I tablespoon + _ teaspoon. Again, if you want a fruitier tart taste add a little more. An Iraqi friend of mine swears by the Pomegranate molasses from Iran, because she claims it is less bitter. I only can seem to find the pomegranate molasses juice made in Lebanon.
1 small onion (I like the white onion as it gives the dip a sweeter taste).
Crushed Aleppo pepper, 1 teaspoon – 3 teaspoon (depending on how hot you want the dip, I like it hot so I put in 1 Tablespoon). You can generally get crushed Aleppo pepper in a Middle Eastern or Arabic store. This season I did not have the time to rush out a half an hour from where I live to the nearest Arabic store so I ordered a lb. of crushed Aleppo pepper on line from My Spice Sage in the Bronx (so for those of you who live in the City this is one of many sources). If you don’t have time to search for Aleppo pepper you can use red chili paste or smoked paprika.
Salt, 1 teaspoon
Extra 1/8 cup of walnuts for the end

Method

1. Place the walnuts in a bowl, add water to cover and soak for one hour.

2. Peel the garlic cloves, chop and place in a mortar with the salt, pound and mash the garlic (if you are not the type to want to mess with a garlic press, I put the garlic cloves in a food processor and then scoop them up and then mash them in a mortar.

3. Wash the peppers and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet under the broiler, turning them every few minutes until the skin is blackened and charred. Blackening the skins just right is a secret in many of these dips like baba ghannoush (eggplant dip), and the Lebanese have perfected this as every home or restaurant I have visited in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine they seem not to char the skin adequately and it gives it a flat taste. You of course want a little red to still peek through so I am not suggesting to totally burn the red bell pepper.

4. After the blackened process has finished, take out the peppers and put them in a plastic bag with a couple of tablespoons of water, close the bag tightly for 10 minutes. Now if the peppers have gotten too watery in the blackening process then add less water, maybe just 1 T is sufficient. Open the bag and peel off the skins of the peppers; cut the peppers open and discard all the seeds and white parts inside, as well as the stem.

5. Peel the onion and cut in quarters.

6. Place the peppers, onion, mashed garlic, drained walnuts, cumin, pomegranate molasses, Aleppo pepper (or if none, chili paste or smoked paprika) and olive oil in the bowl of a food processor. Process for one minute or until the mixture is smooth, yet still thick and with some texture. You don’t want it to be a watery mixture. I would suggest at the end adding an 1/8 cup more of walnuts to the mixture and turning on the food processor for just 2 seconds. This way you will have a crunchier texture to the dip.

Taste to adjust seasonings and transfer the sauce to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate. After it has been refrigerated it should develop a pasty texture. Like many Arabic foods, a day later tastes even better as it allows time for all the ingredients to meld. For those of you who fear that a food processor pulverizes the mixture, the more power to you if you want to manually grind it. I am convinced that in taste and aesthetics, for example, if you are making tabbouli it is better to chop all the ingredients with a knife.

SAHTAYN! (Two Healths to You).