Tag: Women Chefs of the GCC

SAUDI ARABIA : Recipes for Success: Saudi Chef Mona Mosly discusses her VOX cinemas collab, the importance of being yourself

Known for her creative take on classic favorites, Saudi chef Mona Mosly is one of the region’s most recognizable celebrity chefs, renowned for her creative takes on classic favorites.  

As well as being a judge on the Arabic-language version of talent show “Top Chef,” Mosly has extensive experience in culinary art, having trained professionally in Switzerland before attending the world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu in London and subsequently honing her craft at restaurants across the Middle East. 

In January, Mosly joined forces with VOX Cinemas in Riyadh and Jeddah to curate an expanded menu that features more than 20 dishes, including kibbeh nachos and BBQ chicken bao, Armenian tabbouleh, dukka madani chicken burger, halva cookies with Syrian ice cream, Thai curry salmon and more.  

“What I love about this is that (movies) bring people joy,” Mosly tells Arab News. “I believe that I can bring people joy with my food as well. And it’s all about happiness, right? So it’s a beautiful collaboration for me.” 

When VOX first reached out, Mosly says, her first thought was to create a menu of cinema food, “with an Arabic or Saudi twist.” 

She explains: “I believe that food has to be related to us. It could take us to a beautiful memory. It could remind us of flavors from our childhood and all that.”  

One of her favorite dishes on the menu is the kibbeh nachos. “It’s basically kibbeh, but it looks like nachos. Instead of cheddar sauce, I used mohamara sauce, so it gives the same feeling,” she says. “I also love the fish and chips, because it has a very nice story behind it. I like food that can gather different cultures together.” 

Here, Mosly takes a trip down memory lane to when she first started her career, and offers advice for amateur chefs.  

Q: When you started out as a professional, what was the most-common mistake you made when preparing a dish? 

 A: When I was working for Leylaty ballroom in Jeddah, I once burned 80 kilos of morels — one of the most expensive mushrooms. But after that, morel became my favorite ingredient. In kitchens — or any job where you work with your hands — if you don’t make mistakes, you’ll never learn. 

What’s your top tip for amateur chefs? 

Be yourself. Food is all about who you are. You translate what you have within you to people.  

What one ingredient can instantly improve any dish?  

Garlic. Or onion. They are the essence of food. 

When you go out to eat, do you find yourself critiquing the food?  

After six years of ‘Top Chef,’ believe me, I don’t want to critique anything. I’m done critiquing. I go out to have fun. I’ve reached a place where I don’t want to critique, I just want to enjoy. 

What’s the most-common mistake you find restaurants making? 

What annoys me the most is when food doesn’t have a taste because the cook didn’t respect the ingredients. I don’t understand how you can end up cooking a dish that doesn’t taste of anything.   

When you go out to eat, what’s your favorite cuisine? 

It depends. My cheat meal will always be a burger. But if I want to give myself a treat, I’ll go for sushi — or Japanese cuisine anyway. 

What customer behavior or request most annoys you? 

When people like something, they don’t try other stuff. I find that sad, rather than annoying. Why did you like the first thing that you tried? Because you tried it. That’s why you have to try other things too.  

What’s your favorite dish to cook and why? 

I do enjoy things like rolling warak enab (stuffed vine leaves) or stuff that takes time, because I’m a very fast person. I do everything very quickly. So, I like things that calm me down like baking. I like having to wait.  

As a head chef, what are you like in the kitchen? Are you laidback? Or a disciplinarian? 

I believe that when you are loved, appreciated and respected, you can do wonders. So, that’s what I try to give to the people I work with. Really, I like to dance, I like to sing, I like to enjoy being with my team. But when something goes wrong, something goes wrong. So, sometimes, I do have to shout. 

Chef Mona’s Calamari 

  • 1lb or 1/2kg squid rings and tentacles, thawed 
  • Buttermilk brine (300g cold buttermilk & 10g salt, stirred) 
  • 300g or 1 3/4c ap flour 
  • 100g or 3/4c cornstarch 
  • 6g or 2tsp baking powder 
  • 2-3g or 1ish tsp black pepper (finely ground) 
  • 2qt or 8c neutral oil (peanut, canola, etc) 
  • Few pinches of salt

Or 
100g flour 
100g semolina half soft half medium 

MARINARA / “RED SAUCE”

  • 800g or 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes 
  • 1/2g or 1tsp dried basil 
  • 1/2g or 1tsp dried oregano 
  • 1/2g or 1/2tsp dried chili flake 
  • 10g or 2 1/3tsp sugar 
  • 7g or 1 1/4tsp salt 
  • 50g or 3Tbsp tomato paste 
  • 25g or 2Tbsp (double glug) olive oil 
  • 15g or 2 cloves minced garlic 

CHIPOTLE RANCH SAUCE 

  • 125g or 1/2c mayo 
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced 
  • 5-10g or 1-2tsp hot sauce 
  • 1 chipotle chili in adobo 
  • 15g or 1Tbsp lemon juice 
  • 50g or 1/2c sour cream 

TARTARE SAUCE 

  • 250g mayo 
  • 25g capers 
  • 25g gherkins
  • 25g onion 
  • 3g parsley 
  • 2g chives

source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)

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Chef Mona Mosly joined forces with VOX Cinemas in Riyadh and Jeddah to curate an expanded menu that features more than 20 dishes. (Supplied)

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SAUDI ARABIA

BAHRAIN: Tala Bashmi, the Only Arab on Madrid’s The Best Chef Awards list 2022

Tala Bashmi is in good company.

Massimo Bottura, Niko Romito, Yannick Alleno, Heston Blumenthal, Clare Smyth and Anne-Sophie Pic are the big culinary names she’s ranked alongside on the top 100 list for this year’s The Best Chef Awards.

The Bahraini chef, who last year won the first Middle East & North Africa’s Best Female Chef Award, was at the awards ceremony in Madrid earlier this week.

“The people on this list are actual living legends in the culinary field, so for me to be on it at all is amazing,” she tells The National.

“What I’m currently doing is trying to put Middle Eastern cuisine on a global scale, so for me to be the only Arab on this list means I’m taking one step forward to doing that and to give our cuisine its moment in the spotlight and its culinary renaissance.”

Not only is Bashmi the only Arab, she’s also one of only 18 women who have made it on to this list of 100 culinary talents across the globe.

She ranked 93rd, but says the number didn’t “really matter” to her. “Going into this, I had no idea if I was going to make this list,” she says. “I’m from a small island that doesn’t get much exposure, so for me to get this is amazing.”

At the event, which was held at the Crystal Gallery of the Palacio de Cibeles, in Spain’s capital, she met some of her all-time heroes. This includes Andoni Luis Aduriz, a Spanish chef who ranked number five and picked up the award for The Best Science Chef Award. Bashmi describes him as “humble, down to earth and very focused on what matters in this industry rather than distractions around, which I really admire”.

Spain’s Dabiz Munoz picked up the top accolade of The Best Chef for a second consecutive year for his work at DiverXO restaurant in Madrid. Noma’s Rene Redzepi came second, while Spain’s Joan Roca i Fontane rounded out the top three.

Bashmi, who heads The Gulf Hotel Bahrain’s well-regarded restaurant Fusions by Tala, is no stranger to culinary accolades, having picked up her award for Best Female Chef in the region in Abu Dhabi this February. Her restaurant also ranked 39th on the first list of Mena’s 50 Best Restaurants.

She inherited an interest in cuisine and cultural identity from her father through his in-depth knowledge of the ingredients used. She then used this interest to launch Baked by T, before joining the Culinary Arts Academy in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Staying in the central European country, she had roles at the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois in Basel and the Michelin-starred restaurant Prisma in Vitznau, where she learnt more about restaurant operations, as well as working in fast-paced kitchen environments.

Since returning to the Mena region, Bashmi has competed on MBC’s Top Chef Middle East television show in 2020, where she reached the finals.

In 2017, she took over the helm at Fusions by Tala, where she makes modern interpretations of Bahraini dishes, including the standout bamia, a traditional okra and meat stew, for which she uses Wagyu beef cheek, crispy okra glass and tomato broth rice.

“I try to appeal to every audience from every country, in a sense of bringing them back to a state of nostalgia,” she has previously said of her approach. Bashmi might do this through any of our senses, such as when she adds a campfire aroma to the Saudi-Bahraini dessert aseeda to evoke memories of camping, whether in the desert or the forest.

“I feel like this is still the beginning for me,” she says of her latest achievement. “People haven’t seen what came before, what led to today, so every time something is achieved, it’s a new beginning and opens new doors to opportunities I hadn’t even thought of.

“There’s so much more I want to achieve.”

source/content: thenationalnews.com (headline edited)

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pix: thebestchefawards.com

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BAHRAIN