Stuffed, sweet Ramadan recipes from Sudan
Sudan has the most distinct, diverse and colourful cuisine thanks to exposure to different cultures. These include British and Turkish influences, from trade with Syrian and the presence of Arab settlers in the country.
The country’s food has both discovered and developed various tasty appetisers, desserts and many of them are served during Ramadan. As the second week of Ramadan starts, here’s a popular stuffed recipe which is a traditional one in many Arab countries, Turkey, Greece. In Arabic, it’s known as “Mahshi” while it’s “Dolme” in Turkish. Commonly used ingredients are tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, potatoes, baby eggplant and cabbage, added to other vegetables that may be available or desired.
For this recipe, you can put together 4 large tomatoes, 4 medium zucchini, 4 potatoes, 4 peppers, 4 baby eggplants, ¼ kilo ground beef, ½ cup tomato sauce, 1 cup uncooked rice, 1 cup minced fresh parsley, a large onion, 3 cloves garlic minced, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste.
For preparation, slice off the tops of the vegetables, leaving a small piece still attached, and remove the insides.
For the stuffing, fry the onion, add garlic and minced meat, followed by parsley and then rice. Use this mix to stuff the vegetables. Pour in the sauce made of tomato pulp puree and tomato paste, then add salt and pepper.
Place the stuff vegetables in a pan, pour the remaining pulp puree into the bottom of the pan and season over the vegetables with salt and pepper.
Bake in an oven until they become tender, allowing the rice to absorb the liquids.
Another Ramadan staple is the Yoghurt and Cucumber Salad, and a most popular Sudanese dessert and in most other Arab countries is Umm Ali.
To make this, get a packet of frozen puff pastry, ½ kg chopped walnuts, 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup chopped hazelnuts, 1 cup raisins, 1 cup coconut flakes, 1 ¼ cups white sugar, 4 cups milk, ½ cup heavy cream.
Heat the oven to 350°C, place the pastry sheets in the baking dish. When the top layer turns crunchy and golden, remove it.
Put in a bowl, mix the walnuts, pecans, raisins; break the cooked pastry into pieces and stir the nuts mixture onto them, then spread it on a dish.
Bring the milk and sugar to boil in a medium sized saucepan and beat the cream with the remaining sugar.
Add the pastry-nuts mixture to it and put the dessert in the oven broiler until the top is golden, which is about 10 minutes.
Serve hot.