Abu Dhabi

This time we booked a cooking class with a 5 star hotel because there was no other cooking classes in Abu Dhabi. We started by having a really nice refreshing drink that they call lemon and mint water. The hotel adds a little bit of rose water and that makes it different from all the other places that make it. The drink is incredibly refreshing.





Then we went to the market with our chef for the day, Mohammed. The market was empty because it was prayer time and everybody was at the mosque.

First we got dried dates and there was a lot of dates to choose from. Then we went to another dried fruit stand and they were selling dried watermelon and there is nothing like it (in a good way).



We also went to the meat section were they had lots of cuts like the head of a pig, the tongue of a cow and they had tripe which is a cows stomach.

Then we went to the fish section and you could inhale in and out and there was not a scent of fish smell only sea water.

Then we went back to the hotel and started making the lamb stew which had this spice syrup and it turned out amazeballs.

We also made these two types of potatoes and one had red chili paste with a red pepper an the second one had was almost the same except that it did not have the chili paste,  we liked the one with chili paste better.



Mohammed was kind enough share his awesome falafel recipe with us and he used a falafel maker that you could shape the falafel and then put it into the fryer and he gave my dad the falafel maker.

He also taught us all about saffron and that some sellers are using the hair from ears of corn and dye it red and it looks exactly like saffron. The only way you can tell though is you stick the "Saffron" in water and the water will turn red and float on top but if it is real saffron it will float to the bottom and the water will stay clear.

The dessert that we made was called Loquamat which is balls of fried dough that have saffron and they served it with a date syrup and they were really good  I had a lot of them.


We told him about when we were in Spain and we had churros and really thick hot chocolate and then he gave us this coconut and sugar syrup inside churro.          

Our chef's name was Mohammed and the pastry chef's name was Ali so put them together and you have Mohammed Ali (sorry couldn't help it).