Marina's Bloggariffic

Blog readers Jannah, Oharlie, Brad and Xinyun has asked me to blog about typical food that is eaten during Ramadan. So this post is dedicated to you all

While the types of food consumed during Ramadan differs from country to country, the one thing that I always see being eaten during the fasting month is dates.

Dates are the fruits of a type of palm trees. These are the staple food in the Middle East, but you’ll see various types of them being sold out of Egypt such as in Singapore, Malaysia and even Rome especially during Ramadan because of the high level of potassium in dates, making it a perfect food to have after fasting for long hours.

When I was a young girl though, I remember that one of the first times seeing it, it was very daunting for me.

I mean, look at it. It doesn’t look very appetizing with its insect-brown colour, and wrinkly skin, it looked quite scary for a 6 year old. And I’ve always had a mini phobia with dried fruits because some of them reminded me of nose droppings (I’m not going to explain more). But with my parents persuading me on, I gave it a try and thought that it didn’t taste bad! In fact, it was peculiarly sweet.

I still think that eating dates can look very unglamorous, with the spitting out of the seeds and all, but eventually, it wasn’t so bad to eat.

Another item that I see very frequently during Ramadan in Singapore is the Air Kathira.

This is a peculiar looking milky-drink that has black seeds which resembles tadpole eggs. Which interestingly enough, makes me very curious to try it out. But those are actually basil seeds and I love having this drink because of the nice, satisfying feeling when chewing the soft seeds.

It can come in various flavours from plain milk, avocado, mint, rose … Personally I find it even better than drinking Bubble teas and I could be wrong here, but its a pity that it’s not sold during non Ramadan days. Bubble tea operators have nothing to fear … for now

But for Rome though, with the majority of the population being Roman Catholics, Ramadan feels more nondescript. I didn’t really notice any particular special food being made. I mean, I see kebabs, and Arabic sweets and such, but you could get them any time of the year.

But in any case, so far, here are some the food that we’ve prepared for Sahur and Iftar. I didnt manage to snap all of them though because I was too hungry or just too sleepy

This is Farro

The main ingredient is wheat grain and its soaked, boiled and drained and you could mix it with anything you like. Cart likes his with chopped boiled egg, tomato, and cheese, drizzled with olive oil. While I like to add mine with tuna and corn.

Its best eaten cold and its a wonderful summer food.

This is Piadina

Piadina is a type of flatbread which is good to keep in the fridge for those days when you want to have something quick to eat. Just put it on the hot plate, sprinkle some stracchino cheese, some sliced tomatoes and some rughetta and a few minutes later, you have a decent meal.

This is just a couple of samosa and salad that we quickly cooked since Cart wanted to have pizza afterwards.

So it was just a simple, light meal to tide over till the pizza. By the way, the samosas were bought in a Bangladeshi shop not too far away from where were live! What a nice find! For 3.50 euro for a pack of 10, it’s a bit expensive though.

Here is one of my favourite thing to cook, Veggie Lasagna!

What’s strange is that I love this veggie lasagna better than the one with beef even. Its tastier! Made of a mix of ricotta cheese, spinach, mozzarella cheese, zucchini in tomato sauce, I just love eating it. Maybe I’ll show you how to make it in a future blog post. Its quite simple to make

Finally but not least, here is the Couscous that Cart made yesterday

This is one of Cart’s favourite food to eat – couscous with vegetables and chickpeas. Its quite a hassle making this though, with the long amount of time taken to prepare it. But its worth it in the end to tuck into a bowl of couscous.

And with that, I’m going to end this post abruptly because its such a torture writing a food entry when I’m fasting.

Cart and I were at Castel Romano, a designer outlet, mainly looking around for nice things that we could get as presents, taking advantage of the sale season. We were just browsing around the kitchen shop where I saw an ice cream maker and suddenly, it was as if the entire store was illuminated by a shimmering, bright halo.

It could be that I’m influenced by Wati’s recent posts of ice cream or that I’ve yet to see an ice cream maker being sold in the malls here in Rome, or that it was still a heatwave going on, but impulsively, I grabbed it and squealed, “Want!” It wasn’t too expensive anyway, like 30 Euro which is equivalent to one dinner for two in a restaurant.

So we took the last set home, and we couldn’t wait to start to make our own gelato!

Our unit was the Krups ice cream maker. And there is a jug which needs to be placed in the freezer in advance, for at least 12 hours.

And here the jug is making friends with my pack of samosa. Oh! Speaking of which, Cart and I found an alimentari thanks to our Singaporean friend, Lajay who recommended it and we found quite a few Asian stuff there like banana chips and halal samosas! I’m totally gonna stuff my face with that for the next few days.

Ahem. Anyway! While waiting for the jug to freeze, we could start to prepare the ice cream mix. The basic ingredients are, to mix whole milk, sugar, and eggs together and warm it up in a saucepan without boiling it. Let it cool down to room temperature and add cream. You could change the recipe accordingly as to how sweet or how creamy you like it to be or add vanilla or chocolate chips or whatever you like. And then put the mix in the refrigerator to cool down.

When the jug is sufficiently cold, its time to take it out of the freezer and assemble the ice cream maker. This is how the parts look like unassembled.

And this is how it looks like assembled (with an ice cream already being mixed) Careful not to touch the insides of the cooling jug, its cold!

And then slowly add the cold-end ice cream mix from the open lid above. And in about 20 minutes you’ll see your mixture slowly turn into ice cream!

And now that we’ve been so patient all these while, finally its time to dig in!

This is a very nice honey frozen yoghurt Cart made :-D

So far, we’ve made vanilla ice cream, blood orange sorbetto, lemon frozen yoghurt and honey frozen yoghurt on the ice cream maker. Its too bad that the machine only makes a litre at a time because that’s only about 2 servings each for the both of us!

This is the blood orange sorbetto I made. Its as easy as combining sugar water and orange juice!

Some might be wondering, what’s the need for an ice cream maker when I can just make the mix and stuff it in the freezer. I think the biggest difference is the texture. While the one stuffed in the freezer will be crystallised, the one made by an ice cream maker will turn out soft and creamy.

While the gelato that we made might not match to San Crispino or Tony’s Gelateria, there is something very satisfying about making your own ice cream

This is an additional incentive for friends to come over, yes?

Sidenote : It’s Singapore’s National day today! Happy birthday Singapore! By the way, does anyone has a minus-one for the Corrinne May song? I really like it.