Jordanian Cuisine

I’m not a foodie nor a chef but I do eat what looks good in picture. If there’s no picture of the dish, I’d ask for the wait staff to tell me about the food that caught my fancy from the menu.

The simplicity of Jordanian cuisine may not be well-known around the world but one should try when he has a chance. For 11 days in Jordan, I’ve sampled some foods I’ve never heard of or eaten before. Nothing disgusting I’ve tried but there’s one thing that I saw at the market that made me cringed. (You have to scroll down to the end of this blog entry to see it.)

YOUR AMAZING TRIP TO JORDAN STARTS HERE!

Here are some interesting things I discovered about Jordanian cuisine and meal habits.

1. Naan bread is always present in every meal. Hummus in different mixtures/tastes are served as appetizers.

2. Food is often served altogether, especially the appetizers. This creates a fabulous combination of colors, taste and aroma.

How many hummus can you see?

3. Their fruits and vegetables are organic. They grow most of them around the Dead Sea which is rich in minerals.

Stuffed zuchini with yogurt.

4. In some restaurants, their main dish comes with a fresh, organic veggie salad every vegan would love to devour. They’ve got pickles, too.

5. Poultry is eaten more often.

Basmati rice and half grilled chicken.

6. They also eat red meat but most of the time, lamb.

Mansaf is a traditional bedouin food cooked with chicken or lamb with yogurt.

7. [easyazon_link asin=”0375405062″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”pridecostume-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]Jordanian Cuisine[/easyazon_link] is usually cooked in olive oil and garlic. Even my basmati rice has those ingredients topped with peanuts.

Bedouin Gallayah is cooked with meat or chicken, tomatoes, onions, coriander, garlic clove, olive oil, green chili and green pepper.

8. Most foods are grilled.

Mixed grilled (seafood, lamb, chicken)

9. Jordanian food uses herbs, spices and other ingredients. Even these mini pizzas.

10. Almost all restaurants we went to cooked our food using fresh ingredients.

Sambousek. It’s cheese or vegetable served as appetizer or snack. Usually in threesome.

11. Tea is served before, during or after meal.

12. My chicken wings order looks like this. Eating this is no mess at all.

Chicken wings, Jordan style.

13. Dessert comes at the end of every meal.

14. Baqlawah is their most famous dessert. It sounds like baklava, another dessert famous in Turkey.

Baqlawah, a famous Jordanian dessert.

15. And most of all, here’s my favorite food from the whole trip! It’s called—ZARB / ZARF. These chicken and lamb meats were cooked/baked in two-tiered metal, oven-like apparatus under the desert sand for two and a half hours. Yes, under the sand! They buried it there for that long! Really! Watch the video here.