Fadi Kattan: Late-Night Labaneh

Featured in Apartamento Cookbook #7: Late-Night Meals along with Yemisi Aribisala’s recipe: Alkaki and the Allegory of a Good Marriage.

Imagine, you come home late at night after a long service, you have cooked all day, barely had time to eat anything, and your head is full of recipes, ideas on improvement of things you plated that night, flavours you worked with until they permeate through your palate, and you are hungry! You open your fridge, and go for everything that looks refreshing, comforting. Flavours of your childhood and flavours of zingy freshness, all on a plate as you are eager to sit down, rest your tired legs, and start writing those ideas down before you forget. A plate, a layer of labaneh, maybe the one you prepared a few days ago, maybe one out of a box from your dairy shop, then a finely sliced green onion, a sliced cucumber pickle, slices of fresh cucumber, some roquette, coriander and mint leaves you tear coarsely with your hands, a generous sprinkle of sumac, and those nuts you had toasted earlier for some dish, almonds and pine nuts, and finally a generous dash of olive oil. The first time I assembled this plate, I had just finished serving dinner at Fawda, my Bethlehem restaurant—I still remember the main course that day being slow-cooked lamb neck effiloché. On the walk back home across the deserted alleyways of the Bethlehem souk, my thoughts were all over next day’s menu. We had a booking for a private event and I was trying to come up with a menu that reflected the different Palestinian terroirs while celebrating the local ingredients that would be in the market the following day. As soon as I got home, a few ideas popped up and I urgently felt that I needed to write them down. And that is when it happened, my body remembered, I had eaten nothing since breakfast.