Arabic Cuisine

When the first time i came in Sydney.. I do not have many friends, all friends I laugh with are just my landlord's family and class mates. They are very nice and good companions. However... for spiritual life... I can not discuss and ask anything to them because they are not muslims as me.

However... since 2 months ago... I have met Saudi students who maintain my spiritual level at certain level. We pray together... and share news about Islam that sometime I do not realize because in my hometown.. I do not really pay attention to it. For example... here It is difficult to find information about certain occasions such as Assura fasting. They told me the history about Assura.

Another example is Eid Adh festival. When Eid Fitr.. because i did not know where most Islam community lives in Sydney, I passed the opportunity to pray Eid Firt with jamaah. :(.. But it was totally different when Eid Adh festival came. I went to Auburn suburn where is the highest dens muslim society, particullarly Saudi Arabian, who lives in Sydney. It was like I recharged my spiritual life to a higher degree...


Mostly... when Saudi students celebrate a festival or invite someone.. they serve a large number of food. The most prominent is KABSA. Kabsa has main ingridient which is rice or noodle. It is very spicy because it contain a large number of spices such as union, garlic, black paper, salt and dried melon as the most obvious flavour. The rest of them are the spices that i have not known such as bay leaves, cardamon, cinnamon, corriander stick. Cumin is added to give yellowy color. They also put a small box shape of tomatoes and carrot.

Kabsa is served together with vegetables salad. It mixs vary vegetables, unions, tomatoes, salt, and mint leaves. They incubate it for minutes after they add olive oil and lemon juice.

Kabsa is served on big round platter about 60 cms in diameter. Off course we do not have it alone. We eat it together with 4-6 friends for each platter using our right hand. But we can use spoon if we do not like to hand it.