Bahraini cuisine combines Arabic, Iranian, and Indian flavors

When it comes to a culinary juggernaut like Yotam Ottolenghi, it’s clear that it takes a village to keep the recipes and books coming. Noor Murad was head of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen for many years and co-author of two Ottolenghi Test Kitchen cookbooks, Shelf Love and Extra Good Things. She also developed recipes for Sami Tamimi’s Falastin. 

Her latest book — Lugma: Abundant Dishes And Stories From My Middle East — is a personal exploration of her Bahraini heritage as well as the influence of her UK upbringing in recipes. Lugma means “bite” in Arabic.

Evan Kleiman: Where did you grow up and what was the food like that your mom cooked?

Noor Murad: I grew up in Bahrain. I was born and raised in Bahrain but my mom is English. She met my dad when she was 18 and fell in love and moved to the Middle East. She’s still there. It’s been over 40 years. 

I had a real interesting dining table, I guess you’d say, growing up, because it was a real mishmash of cultures. On one hand, we had a lot of the traditional foods of Bahrain at my grandparents’ house and the street food and friends. But at home, my mom cooked a lot from all corners of the world. She was a very good cook but she also cooked quite a few traditional English dishes, like her very famous pancakes and all of her desserts — a good jacket potato, spaghetti bolognese. So I had a bit of an East-meets-West dining table.

The rice dish mathrooba is beaten until it achieves the consistency of porridge. Photo by Matt Russell.

Even in this exploration of your roots food, you still have that recipe developer’s mind. How did you go about balancing tradition with your multifaceted culinary point of view?

It’s interesting because I feel like Bahrain, especially, there’s not many documented recipes in English. It’s very much a “word of mouth” cuisine that’s passed on from one generation to the next. Every household has its own way of doing things, and everyone argues about what the correct way of making this one rice dish is. 

I was almost relying on my taste buds and what I remember because, obviously, I made this book while I was living in London. It was a lot of digging deep into what I could remember but also documenting and precisely measuring it in a way that I know that someone who’s never heard of Bahraini food, or never heard of this one ingredient or dish, could follow the recipe to a T and get that result and get that flavor that I really want them to so they can understand the cuisine and understand the culture. For me, that was the balancing act. It was using all those chefy techniques that I know and also everything that I’ve learned from working in recipe development then bringing in the foods that I cook instinctually.

Let’s start with a traditional dish that you knew you had to make for the book that you would love us to make.

One of the dishes is called mathrooba. This is in the rice section. Mathrooba, in Arabic, means beaten. It’s given this name because it’s literally rice that’s cooked with a base of onion, ginger, garlic, chili, loads of spices, tomatoes, herbs, and then you add bone and chicken pieces, and you add rice, and you add lots of water. It’s almost as if you’re about to make a rice pilaf but you add way more water than you need to and you let it cook low and slow and gently. Your kitchen smells really aromatic. 

You remove the chicken and you remove all the bones. You shred the chicken, you add that back in, and then you beat the mixture. You beat it and beat it until the rice grains are not very discernible anymore. It becomes a consistency of porridge, like a savory, really spiced, hearty porridge. Traditionally, it’s served with loads of fried onions on top and a squeeze of lemon and some melted ghee. You have that, and it’s so warming. I didn’t really steer too far away from tradition and that recipe. So far, people who have made it, have really, really loved it, really enjoyed it.

Bahraini food is “very much a ‘word of mouth’ cuisine that’s passed on from one generation to the next,” says Noor Murad. Photo by Matt Russell.

I would love it if you would give us an idea of the Bahraini flavor profile that the top spices and herbs that are used, and definitely, of course, talk about black limes.

Bahrain is quite unique, because throughout history, it was a very important center of trade and a seaport. Because of that, it’s a very, very small island. It kind of pulled on the surrounding countries and the cuisines that have come through. The big three main cultures I think that have influenced Bahraini food the most are Arabic, Iranian, and Indian flavors. It’s combined to make a very unique, punchy cuisine. It’s very, very herb-heavy, a lot of coriander and parsley and dill. It’s got loads of spices from the Indian influence. Our food is very heavily spiced. Everything’s got turmeric and fenugreek and chilies. But it’s also got the sweeter spices that are more used in countries like Lebanon and Syria, where they have a lot of things like allspice and cinnamon and cardamom. Then, of course, there’s lots of saffron that comes from the Iranian side, and a lot of sour flavor. We love our tamarind, we also love our dried limes.

Black limes are the backbone of cooking in the Gulf and also in Iraq and Iran. They’re basically dried limes that have been dried in the sun until they’re completely hollow. But what happens is it transforms them into a completely different flavor profile. They’re so unique and punchy and earthy and bitter and really, really deep in flavor, they can’t really be substituted or replicated with fresh limes, which are just two completely different things. In Bahrain, we use black limes. It’s so instinctual to add it to our dishes. If you poke a few holes in it, add it to rice dishes, to a base of a biryani or to different stews, we also grind it up and use it in marinade. We make a tea out of it. You can use it in desserts. It’s so, so, so versatile. So if anyone does get Lugma, they’ll see it sprinkled throughout the whole book. I could never write about Bahraini food without including black limes quite liberally.

Let’s talk about the Bahraini dal. It was one of the first things you learned to make as a teen. It is absolutely gorgeous, the photograph of it.

Thank you. I call this dish “my little feelings and big feelings” dish because sometimes, or actually a lot of times, I think a lot of cooks, chefs, struggle with not really knowing what to cook sometimes, and you just have your go to. Dal is mine. I’ve lived on three different continents, and I’ve taken dal with me to all of them because it’s such a simple recipe but it’s so nourishing, not just for your body, but for your soul. 

I was kind of like, “Oh, should I put a dal in the book?” Everybody knows how to make dal, and there’s so many amazing recipes. And Bahraini dal has kind of got its own twist but, you know, this is an Indian recipe. So I was kind of back and forth but I’m really glad I did put it in because I make it so much. It’s probably the recipe that I make the most. It’s got black limes in. It’s got potatoes and this lovely fried onion topping with curry leaves and dried chilies. It’s so, so simple, and one of those things that… it’s not one of those groundbreaking recipes that you’re like, “I’ve never had this before,” but it’s a soothing recipe that I love.

Bahraini dal, which features black limes, is Noor Murad’s go-to recipe. Photo by Matt Russell.

It’s very simple but it also is very layered in flavor.

Yeah, that’s what I do.

Let’s go to your mom’s side. You already mentioned her pancakes. All of the breakfast offerings in the book are crave-worthy. Tell me about your mom’s pancakes and how she became so wedded to them.

My mom is a very English lady but I think she really was very open to our upbringing in Bahrain and us growing up Bahraini. But there were a few things that she was still very attached to. And the two things were Christmas and pancake day. I don’t really know why pancake day was like a chosen thing for her. I think it’s just because she really likes pancakes. The English pancakes are kind of like our French crepes, basically, and she always made them with lemon and sugar on Shrove Tuesday every single year.

For me, it felt so natural to include the recipe for pancakes in the book but I wanted to obviously add my own twist to it, so it’s got this burnt honey and lime sauce and crushed pistachios with lime zest and cardamom. I really love it. My mom still hasn’t tried out this recipe yet. I haven’t had her seal of approval but I’m hoping that she does next pancake day.

“I had a real interesting dining table growing up because it was a real mishmash of cultures,” says Noor Murad. Photo by Matt Russell.

I was going to ask you if she had them. The Good Food Team here is bean crazy and the second I saw the photo of the Arabic baked beans, that was what sold me on having to talk to you about this book. I knew we wanted to talk to you anyway but that photograph is just amazing. Can you talk me through the recipe?

Yeah, of course. There’s always a baked bean recipe. It looks like baked beans but we call them fasoolia baida, white beans. They’re always served as part of a breakfast spread, if you have a bunch of different things. It’s usually served in a tomato-based sauce. It’s got some spices in there and it’s very, very simple. When I was little, my mom sometimes for dinner, she was busy, she was teaching, she didn’t really want to make a big dinner, so she would give us the Heinz baked beans on toast with cheddar smothered under a grill, and it’s all melty and stuff. I used to love it so much when I was little. It felt like such a treat. 

When I put together the breakfast chapter, I was like, I need to do a recipe for baked beans because they exist in both cultures. This one’s got ginger, garlic, green chili in the base, and also an oil that’s spooned on top. It’s very, very simple to make but it’s got these added extras in it, so the spicing. Then it’s dolloped with spoonfuls of labneh or cream cheese and put under a grill until it gets all melty. You could literally just eat it directly from the pan or you could spoon it over a baked potato or get some pizza bread and dig right in. It speaks to your soul.

“Lugma: Abundant Dishes And Stories From My Middle East” by Noor Murad focuses on Bahraini cuisine. Photo by Matt Russell.

The rice chapter is extraordinary. There is a really intriguing photo spread in the book titled “For the Love of Rice.” You were documenting a place in Saudi Arabia known for a particular rice dish. Can you tell us about the place and what they make there?

I really wanted to dedicate a whole chapter to rice because it’s my favorite carb. (Sorry, to any other carbs.) I never really went to Saudi much as a kid. Bahrain shares a bridge between Bahrain and Saudi. It’s 30 minutes, maybe more if there’s traffic, but it felt like a different world to me. I knew for this book that Saudi is known for having some of the most delicious rice dishes, so I was like, okay, I’m going to go to Saudi. I went with my dad and my friend Matt, who also did the location photography for the book. We had a driver with us because we didn’t really know Saudi very well, and he was like, “I’ll show you.” We asked him, “We need to take us to a good rice restaurant. We want to try.” 

He took us to this place and we got there and it didn’t look like much from the outside, if I’m honest. I was like, oh, god. Then, they gave us this rice to try, and it was just so delicious. I remember it had a smoky flavor, really complex but it looks so simple. I was just like, what have they done to this rice? We begged them and begged them to be able to go into the kitchen. They were like, “No, no, no.” I was like, “Please, I just want to see.” And they said, “Okay, come later.” And we did. 

They showed us this back room at the end of the kitchen, and they had all these fire pits, holes in the ground. Deep, deep pits in the ground. It had palm wood burning and they were lowering these rice dishes into them. Basically, they explained to us that they put these rice pots onto the fire, into the flames to cook. On top of that, they put rows of chicken to roast. Then, on top of the chicken, they have a whole lamb that’s wrapped. The juices of the lamb and the chicken go into the rice and give it this lovely, fatty flavor, the rice cooking on fire and the palm wood. It’s very, very simple ingredients but the most intricate technique. It was absolutely magical and I really wanted to write about it, so I did.

Fega’ata is a traditional Bahraini rice dish that involves bone-in chicken thighs tossed in a spice mixture. Photo by Matt Russell.

What is the most traditional Bahraini rice dish you want us to make?

The rice dish that I want everyone to make is called fega’ata. “Ar” in Arabic refers to the bottom of something. Often, fishermen say, “ar til bahaf,” so “bottom of the sea.” But here we talk about the bottom of the pots, which is why this is called fega’ata, because it’s in the bottom where all the good stuff happens, obviously. 

This rice dish is basically bone-in chicken thighs that are tossed in the spice mix with potatoes, tomato, parboiled split peas, ghee, chilies, black limes, and loads of onions. You put it in the bottom of the pot and you don’t add anything to it. No liquid or anything like that because the moisture from the onions ends up cooking the chicken. Then, on top of this mixture, you put parboiled rice with whole spices like bay leaf, cardamom, and clove. Then, you pour this saffron rosewater over the top to gently color the rice. It’s very fragrant. Then, you cover the whole thing, and you cook it on the flame on your stovetop for almost two hours, and the whole kitchen just smells absolutely amazing. 

Then, you invert this rice so the bottom is top and top is bottom. It’s not like the Arabic rice dishes, like maqluba, like the Palestinian rice dishes that come out in one grand tower. This collapses, it falls in a really lovely way. It’s spread out onto a massive platter and the chicken is so, so moist. It’s been steamed. It’s just delicious. 

You get some chicken, you get some vegetables, and you get this aromatic rice. You eat it with a bit of yogurt or spicy sauce, and it’s just a wonderful thing to have on the table for a bunch of mouths to feed and many, many people to dig into.