HUMMUS EVOLUTION 🍆🍆🍆 - Sensational Syrian Recipes and a fantastic story!

elenahornfilm (64)in #life • 4 years ago

🍆 Dear Steemians 🍆

Today we would like to share a very special project with you. It's the moving story of how a Syrian refugee wrote a popular cookbook in Germany. Bilal Maikeh was a post-graduate in Economics and had found his first job in Damascus, his home town in Syria. That's when the war broke out. And he was forced to flee, to Germany - in 2014.

What would motivate an excellent economist to write a cookbook?

For Bilal Maikeh it was a way to express his nostalgia for his home - Syria. The small town called Marburg, with only 81.147 residents it wasn't the vibrant city that he had left behind but he found great friends, learned the language, and cooked a lot for his flatmates. At first, it was hard for him because all his friends were vegetarians or vegan. That's not very common in Syria! He adapted many traditional recipes and came up with creative modern alternatives.

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Together with them, he started to work on a blog and a book, to pass on the rich inheritance of his country's cuisine to the Germans. One of his favorite recipes of his collection is this one:

M´TABBAL Eggplant

1 kg of eggplant
150 g unsweetened soy yogurt
50-100 g tahini
1 - 3 cloves of garlic
Alternatively: oil for deep-frying
salt

You can find Bilal's blog under the following link:
http://hummus-evolution.de/

There are numerous sensational recipes and even videos in case you need some more detailed instructions. I also regularly give his book to friends for Christmas or Birthdays. For the moment the book only exists in German but don't be scared, you will be able to follow the instructions nevertheless.

FALAFEL

400 g dried chickpeas
50 g fresh coriander
50 g fresh flat parsley
1 leek or 2 onions
6 cloves of garlic
3 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of salt
3 teaspoons of falafel seasoning (alternatively, you can mix this yourself by mixing 2 teaspoons of ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon or allspice)
Oil for deep-frying
A bowl of sesame seeds

As time was passing by, Bilal's little book idea turned into a great project: In November 2016, Bilal and his roommates were working hard, cooking and photographing over 26 different Syrian dishes. Bilal wrote down his story and the cookbook "Hummus Evolution" was created. It has now been sold over 4,000 times. Bilal is sending his profits to his family in Syria to rebuild their agricultural supplies store, which had been destroyed by the war.

Valentin Winhart took all the wonderful photos that are featured in the book. You will also enjoy the design and entire look of this extraordinary cookbook. I'm sure @petrahaller will enjoy this in praticular!

Bilal's Youtube Channel is called Bilals Hummus Evolution. There you can see him prepare his favorite dishes and follow his instructions.

Yours,
Elena & Ale

#cooking #photography #steemit #lifestyle