PREPARATION TIME: 20 YEARS

There aren’t many cookbooks on Emirati food, and author Uwe Micheel says writing Flavours of Dubai took him nearly two decades.

The idea came from hotel guests who wanted to try local food. Back then, we’d send them to Lebanese or Arabic restaurants because there was nowhere else,” he tells Table Talk. That got him thinking about cooking Emirati food, he says. At the time, hotels all over Dubai catered for Emirati banquets and weddings by buying in traditional dishes from a little cafeteria on the corniche opposite the Deira Fish Market.

“I always had it in my head to do more, but when I asked around, I found that most cooks in Emirati homes were expatriates. There were no Emirati cooks, except for some ladies. So I gave up.” Although he worked on local food projects for Dubai Tourism, the book only started to take shape when Aseelah became reality. “I dreamt one night of opening an Emirati restaurant. That’s when I really started work on it.”

Research involved meeting with local grandmothers, talking to citizens, and visiting some of the country’s palaces. He says he’s indebted to Zabeel Palace Hospitality’s Ahmad Bin Harib, whose firm caters to over 120 royal households every day. Other recipes he had translated from the Arabic, sourced from friends and from hotel chefs.

“I realised I needed to add contemporary recipes when I invited my wife and her friends with a group of local ladies to eat at the hotel. My wife and her friends were reluctant to try the dishes, but the local ladies were delighted because they hadn’t eaten many of those dishes in years,” he says. The margougat, for example, he interprets as a chicken roulade with Emirati ingredients.

Flavours of Dubai can be purchased at Souq.com, bookstores across the UAE, and Aseelah Restaurant at Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek.