Family blend Teamwork and a shared love of food have enabled this Lebanese family to bring the flavours of their homeland to the Kiwi market Text by JANE BINSLEY Photographs by TODD EYRE This page: The Bejjani family relishes the chance to get together and enjoy each other’s company – along with plenty of home cooking. Opposite page: Hayssam pours the champagne. The entrée of Shish Tawook Chicken Livers with Pomegranate Sauce, see recipe on page 111. 106 taste diningin W hoever said too many cooks spoil the broth clearly never saw the Bejjani family in action in the kitchen. As matriarch Sonia presses spiced mince onto sticks for kofte, her husband Sami trims lamb racks and daughter Myriam coats them liberally with Shawarma mix from the family’s range of gourmet spice blends. Eldest son Hayssam pours Champagne, dropping a few pomegranate seeds into each glass for dramatic effect, while his brother Sam sautés shallots and bacon for the chicken liver entrée. “It’s teamwork,” says Sonia. “It’s not me holding the whip giving orders.” Chatting happily in English and Lebanese, they share a camaraderie and a love of food honed during the many hours Hayssam, Sam and Myriam spent helping out after school at their parents’ Christchurch café, Sami’s. Although now spread out over four cities in two countries, the family gets together as often as possible. “Christmas is when all my children come home,” says Sonia. “All the family celebrates with food – loads of food!” Today they have gathered in Auckland, where Sam lives, for a family reunion lunch. Sam’s partner Rebecca Laney put together the menu, but the whole family pitches in to help out. They’ve taken the same team approach with their newest venture, the Sami’s Kitchen range of Middle Eastern spice blends. Everyone chipped in to launch the range last year, with Sonia providing her recipes and mixing the spices by hand, Hayssam fine-tuning and marketing the label, and Sam, who has an MBA and works for www.taste.co.nz JBWere, managing the financial and strategic side of the business. The seed of the idea was planted nearly two years ago, at Christmas time. “We were sitting around after dinner and Hayssam said, ‘Mum, what will you do if you sell the business or retire?’” recalls Sonia. “I said I’d write down all my recipes in a book and mix my spices and sell them so I didn’t get bored. Hayssam liked the idea and wanted to start sooner rather than later.” After 19 years of running one of Christchurch’s most popular Middle Eastern cafés, Sonia and Sami had a clear idea of which Lebanese flavours appealed to the Kiwi palate. They narrowed Sonia’s many recipes down to four key spice mixes and launched them onto the New Zealand and Australian markets. Available at specialist food stores, delis and selected department stores and supermarkets, the Falafel, Shawarma, Zaatar and Shish Tawook blends have proven popular with Kiwi chefs and home cooks. “It was originally meant to be a little online thing – a retirement plan for Mum and Dad – but it got way out of control,” says Hayssam, who works in publishing business development in Sydney, growing the Sami’s Kitchen brand in his spare time. “Middle Eastern cuisine is still exotic and largely unknown in New Zealand,” says Sam. “It’s seen as just kebabs, whereas there’s so much more to it.” He says the spices can be used in a vast variety of ways, not just in traditional Lebanese recipes. “The brand isn’t about cooking Middle Eastern food. It’s about making hamburgers and putting a bit of the Shawarma mix in the mince. taste 107 This page, from above left. Sam’s partner Rebecca prepared the menu. Their daughter Siena nibbles on bread; Sami gets ready to serve the kofte; while Myriam and Sonia do their bit. Opposite page: Sonia’s spiced kofte with flatbread and hummus. To complete the meal, Sam pours glasses of mint tea. 108 taste www.taste.co.nz diningin It’s about barbecues in summer, but putting some spices on the lamb or beef so it’s a bit more interesting.” Sonia’s own cooking has undergone a similar metamorphosis in the years since 1989, when she arrived in Christchurch with a repertoire of traditional Lebanese recipes learned from her mother and grandmother. “More and more she made Western dishes, but added the spices and flavours that make them more familiar to us – an infusion of Middle Eastern flavour,” recalls Sam. Today’s menu begins with Sonia’s hummus, marinated olives and labne (strained yoghurt with garlic and lemon juice), followed by her vine leaves stuffed with spiced rice and cooked in a pot lined with lamb spare ribs. These are enjoyed on the run, while cooking the rest of the food. Once grilled, the kofte are wrapped in flatbread with a dollop of hummus and an intense garlic paste called toum. Then Rebecca serves up toasted flatbread topped with slightly wilted spinach, chicken livers and crispy bacon, followed by the main of spiceencrusted lamb racks on a bed of broad bean and mint crush. For Rebecca, who is a passionate foodie, meeting Sam’s family and discovering the world of Lebanese cooking was a revelation. “The first time I went to dinner with Sam’s family, I was in heaven!” she says. “The beauty of this family and the Lebanese culture means that Sonia always invites my Mum and my sister, too, and if they aren’t with me she gives me a container of food for them.” www.taste.co.nz Myriam, who works as a psychologist in Melbourne, has flown home to visit her 18-month-old niece Siena (Sam and Rebecca’s daughter) – and for a fix of her Mum’s cooking. “It’s always nice to come home and have Mum’s food. You take it for granted until you taste other things, then you realise it’s really quite amazing.” Although she gets great pleasure from cooking, Sonia didn’t consider it as a business option until she and Sami decided to flee a war-torn Beirut. “We lived through 15 years of war in Lebanon. Hayssam was eight months old when the war started and Myriam and Sam were born during the war. We thought we needed to give them a better life. In Beirut I was a secretary in a bank and my husband was a computer programmer and salesman. But despite all the experience we had, and the fact that we speak three languages, it wasn’t easy to be accepted here. We are a proud race and we would never wait for the government to keep us. I was good at cooking so we opened Sami’s. It was a long road but it’s now very successful.” Sami’s Kitchen looks likely to be a similar success. Planned extensions to the range include wet spice blends, Lebanese coffee, flavoured labne and toum, and Hayssam is flying to Europe later in the year for discussions with export partners in the UK, France and Germany. When this dynamic family puts their heads together, ambitious and delicious things happen. See over the page for recipes from the Bejjanis’ lunch taste 109 on low. Add stock, bring to the boil, then lower heat again. (Can be prepared ahead to this point and finished while lamb is resting.) Throw in the podded broad beans, cook for 5 minutes, then season to taste. Transfer to a bowl, leave to rest for 5 minutes, then pulse with a wand blender or mash to lightly crush beans. Gently stir in remaining butter and oil with the mint. 2 Preheat oven to 220°C. Season the lamb racks with salt and pepper, rub Shawarma blend evenly over the meat and drizzle each rack with 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil. Heat a frying pan until smoking hot, add lamb racks, meaty side down, and seal for 3 minutes or until golden in colour. Turn and seal the other side for 1 minute. Transfer lamb to a roasting dish and roast in the preheated oven for 8 minutes (medium rare). Remove and set aside to rest for 5 minutes before slicing into cutlets. 3 Serve lamb with broad beans, squeeze over some lemon juice and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Garnish with herbs and add a dollop of toum (a paste of garlic, oil, lemon and salt), if you like. &Ƶǖ.6ƼǏ3 To easily remove the skins from frozen broad beans soak them in hot water for 2 minutes, then squeeze at one end to pop out the bean. Shawarma spiced lamb with broad bean crush Ready in | 40 minutes Serves | 4 Broad bean crush 2 Tbsp good-quality olive oil Shawarma spiced lamb 2 cleaned French lamb racks with 8 cutlets on each (ask your butcher to clean the racks and remove any extra fat) 2-3 Tbsp Sami’s Kitchen Shawarma Spice Blend 50g butter Extra virgin olive oil 3 small shallots, finely chopped (or Juice 1 lemon 3 Tbsp finely chopped onion) 1 clove garlic, crushed 75ml chicken stock 500g frozen broad beans, skinned (see Cook’s Tip) 3 Tbsp sliced mint leaves Toum garlic paste, to serve (optional) 110 taste Mint and/or coriander leaves for garnish 1 To make broad bean crush, put 1 Tbsp olive oil with 25g butter in a saucepan and heat until butter has melted. Add shallots, lower heat and cook for 4 minutes or until shallots are translucent (don’t burn them). Add garlic and cook for 4 minutes www.taste.co.nz diningin 3 small shallots, finely diced 120ml chicken stock 3 Tbsp pomegranate juice (from specialist food stores and some supermarkets) 1 Tbsp butter To serve 1 loaf Turkish pide Olive oil Shish Tawook chicken livers with pomegranate sauce 1 clove garlic, halved Ready in | 30 minutes Serves | 4-6 Pomegranate seeds, if available 400g baby spinach Squeeze lemon juice 1 Heat a large, deep frying pan until smoking. Add 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 600g fresh chicken livers, trimmed and then the chicken livers. Season with salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes on cleaned 1 side. Turn each liver over to seal the other 1 clove garlic, finely sliced side, then add garlic and cook for a further 2 Tbsp Shish Tawook 2 minutes. Sprinkle Shish Tawook blend over 150g smoked bacon, diced, plus extra mixture, then remove livers from the pan BET T L E7 6 0 9 B_ T _ Ha l f P. p d f Pa ge 1 9 / 1 5 / 1 0 , 5 : rashers, pan-fried, for garnish and set aside. BETTLE7609 Extra virgin olive oil 2 Put another 1 Tbsp oil in the pan, throw in the diced bacon and cook for 2-3 minutes or until smoky. Add shallots, and toss for 4-5 minutes until translucent. Deglaze pan with chicken stock, then reduce to a syrupy consistency. Add pomegranate juice and gently stir through. Return chicken livers to the pan and gently stir through the sauce. Remove from heat and fold in the butter (this gives the mixture a nice glossy sheen). 3 Slice Turkish pide in half lengthways and then into 4-6 squares. Grill for 5 minutes until toasted, then drizzle with olive oil and rub with the cut garlic. 4 Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a pan, add the baby spinach, season and quickly toss for 30 seconds. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, toss, then remove from heat and place in a colander to drain. 5 To serve, put toasted pide on serving plates and top with chicken livers. Add wilted spinach and a slice of pan-fried bacon. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds, 5 4 PM if available.