The spices combine in a delicious blend that has hints of cloves or nutmeg. It filled us and warmed us up in the cold desert night.
The Bedouin chicken and vegetables were good as well. The best part of the experience was watching them make it! Afterwards, we had some arabic sweets that were flaky, sprinkled with nuts and soaked in honey.
The wings and fries felt like home. After a week of enjoying delicious spices that play with your palate in unexpected and exciting ways, pickled vegetables and savory sauces, it was good to have something familiar. It also helped that it was half the price of all the other restaurants in Jerusalem.
Maqlaba is cooked in a pan with chicken and vegetables on the bottom and then the pan full of food is flipped over to make a delicious dome of chicken, rice and veggies.
The Bedouin dish was cooked over a bed of hot coals buried three feet in the ground. It had a lid on top and a rug over that to keep out any desert sand.
The wings and fries were deep-fried.
In Palestinian and Jordanian culture maqlaba is connected to the rich and fertile valleys that support their booming agricultural industries. Many nuts, fruits and vegetables we see in the stores in Romania are from Israel, Palestine or Jordan. The rice, eggplant, cauliflower, carrots and pine nuts are all grown in the fertile valleys of this region.
In Bedouin culture, the food is much more dependent on a harsh desert ecosystem. The food that was served still had vegetables and other produce from more fertile areas but Bedouin people are much more reliant on their animals for meat, eggs and milk.
