Arabic Cooking

I have been taking Arabic cooking courses at the AWARE Center for the past few weeks. Last week we learned how to make a very difficult Kuwaiti dish. It was quite tasty though and even learned how to make Baklava one of my favorite desserts. This week we learned how to make a dish from Libya called Mabakab. It was a pasta dish with lamb in it. I am not a fan of lamb and the dish ended up quite spicy but the class was fun and educational as usual. The instructor did say you could substitute lamb for chicken and if I add less spices I think it would be quite tasty.


We put all the men to work this week and had them do all the prep work since even the instructor was a man. Which is very rare as last week our Kuwaiti female instructor said it is considered “shameful” (more or less beneath them) for an Arabic man to cook in her culture. That is work for the ladies or hired help.


I actively took notes so I could hopefully recreate the dish later. Or maybe I’ll bring the recipes home to mom and dad and supervise while they make a tasty Arabic creation. Next week is Lebanese food which is said to be easier to make and I already know I like Lebanese food so looking forward to the class. After almost 2 years in Kuwait I am finally making an effort to enjoy the culture, better late than never.