Do it yourself: Petra kitchen

It was our last night in Petra. We were hungry and we wanted to eat something local, so we went to check out the Petra Kitchen restaurant.

Petra Kitchen is a very special restaurant. It is very small and open only for dinner time. They provide only local food and the best part is, that you prepare yourself. This was a true opportunity for the genuine Jordanian experience.

When we arrived, everything was ready and waiting for us.

There was 12 of us taking this cooking class: 6 men and 6 women. We were divided into two groups. Girls were making appetizer and salads and men prepared the main course and hot appetizer. And what were we cooking? The first dish was Shourbat Adas (Lentil soup), followed by cold appetizers Fatoosh (Cucumber and Tomato Salad), Baba Ganuj (Eggplant Salad or Sugar daddy as the kitchen´s owner translated it), Tahina Salad (Salad with sesame paste) and Hommos. Hot appetizers were Araies lahma (Bedouin pizza) and Galayat Bandura (Spicy tomato sauce). Main dish was Musakhan (Chicken dish with onions and bread).

When we got properly dressed the owner of the restaurant explained how are we going to prepare the dishes.

The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly and we couldn´t wait to start cooking. On the lower picture you can see lentil, which was soaked in the water. We used it for the soup.

There were two chefs in the kitchen, who carefully watched what we were doing. They also assisted with helpful cooking tips, but mainly they made sure, that the food will be absolutely delicious once it is done. On the picture below you can see the chef taking care of the men´s group...

...and the chef taking care of the girls´ group.



Once lentil was soaked enough, we boiled it with spices in chicken stock. The soup needed constant stirring.

When soup was cooking, we started to prepare vegetables for the salads.

And this is how the professionals do it.

Once the vegetables for the salad were properly chopped and seasoned...

...we had to taste them to see if everything is as it should be.

It was time to prepare Tahina Salad. We chopped onions, tomatoes, cucumber and hot green pepper. Then we added spices and of course tahina (sesame paste). The salad should have consistency of a cream and for that it needs a lot of stirring.

Bedouin pizza is pita bread stuffed with seasoned lamb meat. Afterwards it is coated with olive oil and baked in the oven.

When Bedouin pizza was baked, we had to cut it into small triangles.

Grande finale was Musakhan - roasted chicken with onions, pine nuts and bread. Firstly we put bread in to the oven pan added chicken mixture and coated with more bread. The dish was ready for oven.

And the final result:

Galayat Bandura

Tahina Salad

Baba Ganuj

Fatoosh

The owner of Petra kitchen surprised us with the desert. It was probably the only dish without onions.

Needless to say, everything was delicious. The amount of food prepared was too big and there was a lot of leftovers. We were happy to hear, that all the leftovers go to Bedouin families, who live nearby.

The owner also has a shop with traditional clothes and other souvenirs from Jordan. On the picture below you can see Bedouin scarf and rope made out of camel hair.

He was happy to show us, how to properly wear Bedouin scarf.

Greetings from Petra,

Jerneja & Boris