Rouxbe

I made this last night I have to say I wasn't impressed. I'm familiar with a similar Middle Eastern dish called Lachmajou, however lamb is used instead of beef and only cinnamon for the spice. I'd omit the tomato paste and replace it with chopped tomatoes instead. The paste is very concentrated and overpowers the dish unless you add some broth or other liquid to mellow it out. Also, cooking it for only five minutes after the adding all those spices doesn't give enough time for the flavor to develop. Over all it tasted like ground beef with tomato paste. Sorry, just my opinion) I added sautéed garlic, a bit more salt and a little chicken broth to try to balance things out. The hummus was very good! However, I added extra garlic and olive oil.

Hi Michele G. Thanks for your feedback. As a founder, we love both positive and constructive feedback. This is a recipe that we have personally made over five times and everytime we've made it, people have raved about it. In fact, we made it just last night for 25 people and it lasted about 15 minutes. So while I'm a bit surprised, I'm more concerned that everyone has great experiences with our recipes.

So with this said, I'm wondering if anyone else out there has tried this recipe. At Rouxbe, we only feature the best of the best and we are more concerned about quality than quantity so I'd rather improve this recipe or delete it.

Floors open. Thanks again for sharing your comments Michelle.

Joe

In view of Michele's comments, I substituted 2 diced tomatoes for the tomato paste and put in a splash of white wine which had a nice deglazing effect (I like saucy dishes anyhow). I think the extra liquid helped the spices along. I also added extra garlic to the hummus, but that's really a personal thing isn't it? I think if I was making it for company I would have stuck to the amount of garlic suggested in the original recipe. I thought the spice amounts for the beef were perfect, and I'm really glad to have discovered this dish. Yum!

I can see why it would taste like beef with tomato paste, look at the amounts of the spice the recipe calls for.
I always laugh at recipes that call for something like 'an EIGHTH of a teaspoon of chili powder.'

I mean why even bother, 1/8tsp isn't going to do anything. IMO spices like chili powder and cumin should be used in denominations no smaler than a tablespoon. So, want the beef to have flavour? Add (ALOT) more cumin and chili powder and taste it while its cooking to test if it has enough flavour.

I followed the recipe exactly and thought it was really flavorful..You do have to limit on spices such as cinnamon and allspice for they are strong..Thanks for sharing this..I have gotten so many great recipes from this site...