Made in Palestine

Authentic dishes from the Palestinian cuisine

An empty plate in place of the dishes mentioned in the below piece as the deliberate starvation in Gaza continues.

The Middle East is known for its cuisine and Palestine is no different. From the infamous dishes of Maklouba, Musakhan and several others that will have your mouth watering when merely listening to their descriptions, Palestine will take you on a culinary adventure with both its savory and sweet dishes.

Accompany us on this journey, where we will explore the dishes of Palestine and what makes them so unique and tasteful. We will also give you a cheat sheet of all the local places you can try these cuisines to begin your culinary adventure when visiting Palestine.

We will begin our journey with the savoury delights of Palestine, and one of the most well-known dishes is the Palestinian Maklouba. It is a well-balanced meal all mixed together in one pot. At the bottom of the pot, you have your choice of chicken or meat, and on top of that, you have your choice of fried vegetables. The most common vegetable mixtures for this dish are cauliflower, potatoes, and carrots when the dish is cooked with chicken, and a mix of tomatoes and eggplants when the dish is cooked with meat. The dish can also have a mix of all these vegetables. After the vegetables are added, rice with the stock from the meat or chicken is added with spices from the Palestinian kitchen like cumin and mixed spices. Maklouba literally translates to something that is turned upside down from Arabic, and that is because after the meal is cook the pot is turned upside down on a large circular tray. This is a dish many families in Palestine cook on the weekends as everyone is at home and can share the meal once it is turned upside down and lunch is served. It is a dish that gathers the family for a meal no matter how busy one is. The best place to try this dish is at a Palestinian home; as a visitor to Palestine, you are bound to be invited as the culture is very hospitable and guests are always welcomed.

One of the best places to get the closest thing to a homemade maklouba is Jenin Restaurant in Ramallah. A meal is about $10. It is a restaurant with a modern design and atmosphere, but with traditional dishes; a great mix between old and new.

Another mouth-watering dish that originated in Palestine is Musakhan. This dish is based upon olive oil. It is eaten all year round, but many people especially make this dish directly after the olive harvesting season in October of each year when the freshly harvested olive oil is still green in colour. The dish is made with taboun bread, a bread that was traditionally made in taboun ovens (oven rooms that needed to be heated slowly overnight until they were hot enough to make the bread) which is a Palestinian form of slow cooking. With commercialization taking place and large machines at bakeries popping out several taboon bread pieces at once, not many families make the bread in the traditional way anymore, but those who do, make an exceptional musakhan dish. Taboun bread is then covered in olive oil and then onions cooked down with sumac and olive oil is placed on it. The bread is then topped with chicken ready to place in the oven. This dish is filling and heavy, not suitable for the fainthearted. It is an integral part of the Palestinian cuisine and culture especially that it ties in with the tradition of slow cooking of bread and the annual olive harvest.

My favorite place to get musakhan is from Al-Falaha restaurant in Ein-Arik, a town 15 minutes away from the city center of Ramallah. The restaurant is in an old traditional house, and their specialty is musakhan. Their food is literally homemade and you can eat it at the restaurant which has a vintage traditional vibe for about $16 with salads or you can take it to go for about $10.I would definitely recommend having the meal at the restaurant to get the full experience.

The last savory dish we will salivate over today is mahashi wa warak which is stuffed vegetables and grape leaves. This dish is cooked in other Levantine countries as well, but you find that each country has its own way of making it. Basically, in Palestine any vegetable from which you can remove the pulp is stuffed with rice and minced meat (or rice and minced vegetables) and the grape leaves are stuffed with the same stuffing. They are all cooked together in a pot with broth and tomatoes, where you can add chicken or meat to the bottom of the pot, then the stuffed vegetables and finally the stuffed grape leaves. This dish is similar to the maklouba in that it is turned upside down on a big tray (sidr) for everyone to enjoy and share while it is hot. This is a dish that requires a lot of work, so you find families sitting together to prepare for the dish which will take them a few hours only then to find that the dish has been devoured within minutes by the entire family.

A great restaurant to try this dish at is Samer Restaurant in Al-Bireh where you can have stuffed zucchini and grape leaves any time you want without pre-ordering like many other restaurants require as it is very time-consuming to make this dish. You can get this dish for about $19 and only $13 if it is a takeaway order. This is a nice family restaurant which is very simple with minimal décor, but with great dishes. You get a variety of salads with your order and the soup of the day. After your meal, you are served a small piece of sweet called basbousa and coffee all included in your order. Samer is a very local restaurant where you will find some of the best traditional dishes.

If you are already craving the dishes above, wait until we get into the details of Palestinian sweets that are a must have after a savory meal.

Starting off with the well-known kunafa that has captured the hearts of many. This sweet originated in the city of Nablus that is known for their goat cheese which is the main component of this dish. The dish is made in very large copper pans with a special kunafa dough placed at the bottom. Food coloring is usually added, giving the kunafa its vibrant orange color. Then the unsalted goat cheese is added. Unsalted cheese in Palestine is known as sweet cheese as it is the cheese that is used to make sweets. This cheese is better known as Nabulsi cheese in Palestine and internationally. The pan is then cooked on a flame, and then it is turned upside down and a sweet syrup made from sugar and water is added in addition to ground pistachios. The interesting thing about this sweet is that the people of Nablus traditionally eat it in a pita bread in the morning for breakfast where you can find Palestinians lining up with fresh pita bread from the bakery to get their morning dose of kunafa. Most other Palestinian cities are known for their savory breakfasts, and eat kunafa as a desert after a meal, but in Nablus, you can have it from breakfast until dinner.

The best place to get kunafa is the city of Nablus, the home of kunafa, where I personally recommend Abu Salha as you can taste a unique richness in their goat cheese. You can get a piece of kunafa for only 5 shekels which is about $1.5. The atmosphere is always super busy with people coming in and out buying sweets, especially kunafa. Some people come from other cities just to buy the kunafa and so will buy a lot to bring back to their families, so you might be waiting for some time to get yours, but it is definitely worth the wait.

Going from Nablus in the North to Hebron in the south, where a popular dessert is karabeej halab. This is a dessert that looks similar to churros. It is made with a dough mix that is deep fried and then dipped into a sugar syrup. My favorite places to get karabeej halab are from the stalls scattered around the city center where they are made in front of you and you get to eat them while they are hot and crunchy. You will usually find lines of people waiting to get them as they are very popular, so be ready for a long wait!

Last but not least is mutabbaq which originated in Jerusalem and is exclusive to Zalatimo sweets. This is a shop that was first established in the old city of Jerusalem. It is a very thin sheet of dough, even thinner than a crepe with goat cheese, walnuts and cinnamon inside. This is not something to miss, and can only be found in Palestine. I recommend you try this at Zalatimo in Ramallah. It is about $7 per plate and it takes about 20 minutes for your order to be ready as it is only made per order not like the other sweets that are made throughout the day. It is usually very busy especially in the evening when people want to have a dessert after their meals and it has a modern fast-paced atmosphere as it is on Al-Irsal streets, one of the main roads in Ramallah that is always busy with traffic.

We hope you enjoyed this journey that was meant to intentionally stimulate your taste buds to encourage you to try these dishes which add a very rich flavor to the Palestinian and international cuisine. If you are passionate about food and flavors, Palestine is definitely the place to come to.