Cook Lebanese with Maggie Sat 8 May at 17-19
08.05.2021 - 08.05.2021
Event description
Hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush… Lebanese cuisine is world famous for good reasons. Even the simplest vegetarian home cooking is absolutely delicious! Learn to cook some of the less well-known dishes with the famous Maggie of Café Rouge, an institution in herself! In this interactive live stream cooking session Maggie will teach you to prepare simple Lebanese home cooking: malfoof bil banadora (cabbage and tomato salad), mujaddara (lentil stew), and salatet fawaakeh (fruit salad). These are the fare of poor people, in solidarity with our friends in Lebanon suffering from the severe economic crises.
You can ask questions from Maggie through our other host Miriam, who joins Maggie in the kitchen of Café Rouge in this Saturday night cooking session. While cooking, they will chat about Lebanese cuisine, culture, and politics and sip some Lebanese Ksara wine.
The event will be mostly in English spiced with some Arabic and Finnish. It is free of charge, you just need to buy the ingredients beforehand. The cooking session will be streamed in the event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/472559910467898.
You can ask the questions in the comment section of the live stream. You can cook the whole menu with us or select a dish. Or just sip some wine.
If you want, you can register to the event here: https://forms.office.com/r/i3BEfwxkYV
We will send a reminder of the shopping list for the registered participants a few days before the event.
The shopping list for the menu (for 4 portions):
Malfoof bil banadora
– 1 small cabbage
– 250 g cherry tomatoes
– 2 lemons
– 6-8 garlic cloves
– Olive oil
– Salt
Mujaddara
– 1 kilo dried brown lentils
– 150 g basmati rice
– 2 leeks
– 6 onions
– 1 fresh chili
– Lots of olive oil
– 1 bay leaf
– Salt
Salatet fawaakeh
– 150 g sugar
– 2 star anises
– 2 cinnamon sticks
– 1 lemon
– 500 g seasonal fruits or berries
– Orange flower water (optional)
Drinks:
– A bottle of Ksara wine (optional)
Maggie, in her own words, was a Lebanese child who became a Finnish woman. She moved to Finland in the end of the 1980s, leaving the devastating war in Lebanon behind her. She was one of the founders of the famous Lebanese restaurant Farouge in 1995. Today, Maggie runs the legendary Café Rouge with her husband Tony serving delicious Lebanese tastes for lunch at the Helsinki city centre. At Café Rouge, the customers are spoiled and treated like friends and family.
Maggie is the author of three books, including the bestselling cookbook “Libanonin makuja” from 2006. She has hosted two cooking programs on the Finnish TV. Maggie is well-known for her vivid and adventurous character and always tries to make the most of life.
Miriam works at the Foundation of the Finnish Institute in the Middle East. In 2019, she had the pleasure to spend six months in Lebanon as the trainee of the institute, located in Badaro, Beirut. During that time, she fell in love with the beautiful country and the delicious Lebanese food and has been hoping to go back ever since.
The event is organized by the Anna Lindh National Network in Finland and the Finnish Institute in the Middle East in the framework of the Anna Lindh Foundation Virtual Marathon for Dialogue. It is sponsored by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, EU, and the Anna Lindh Foundation.