BUSINESSWOMAN Naima Hassan proved she is just as talented in the kitchen as she is in the office of a high-tech computer company, thanks to her award-winning display of cooking prowess, writes Mai Al Khatib-Camille.
Her mouth-watering chicken pastille with flavourful almonds dish melted the hearts of judges as she won a cook-off contest and a place on a top hotel’s Ramadan menu.
Naima, 53, an assistant director at IT solutions provider Gulf Business Machines (GBM), is thrilled to have her dish featured at Baharat restaurant in the Kempinski Grand & Ixir Hotel Bahrain City Centre where she often dines with family and friends.
“This was a great opportunity to add something new to the menu and I hope it will give people a new flavour of excitement,” the mother-of-four from East Riffa said.
“I’m sure people will appreciate it as a lot of my own dinner guests often request this dish when they visit me.
“To see people smile when they taste my food is enough, and when I spotted the judges enjoying it I knew that I had a good chance of winning!”
Her dish wowed the hotel’s Executive Chef Stefanos Melianos and assistant Chef de Cuisine Issam Seddoq after she entered the recipe for it into a competition.
After scores of entries were received from different parts of Bahrain, three were chosen for the final stage with Naima’s dish up against Johanne Prevost’s nutty ‘tabouleh tower’ with beetroot and blue cheese and Sandeep Ahlawat’s ‘dilmoon’ featuring dal and chicken seasoned with spices in Sunday’s cook-off.
Naima said: “I figured it would be exciting to have a different kind of dish on the menu because during Ramadan food can get a little repetitive.
“First of all, a lot of people don’t want to eat at home for the whole 30 days of Ramadan. They tend to go out every once in a while for a change of scenery and taste. But even then, most of the time, it’s the same traditional Bahraini food such as Harees or Thareed. People like a change when breaking their fast or joining friends in the evening.”
Naima’s sweet and simple dish that includes chicken, almonds, egg, honey, cinnamon, ginger and pastry, is one of the favourite main meals in her household, especially with her husband Ambassador Ahmed Al Hajeri, 54, the director of Arab Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Children, Sarah, 27, Mariam, 25, Abdullah, 23 and Fatema, 20, are also proud of their mum’s culinary achievement.
Naima added: “After I had won, I got a phone call from Mariam asking how I did. When I told her the dish had won she said: ‘I knew it! Of course, you were going to win’.
“I appreciate all my family’s support. I was confident in this recipe because it has a great balance of salty and sweet flavours. At home, this is considered our main dish; it’s simple to do!”
Naima’s grandmother passed on her cooking skills to her and, in turn, she has passed on her wisdom to her daughters, although they still leave more complicated dishes to her.
Aside from the dish being featured on the menu for Iftar throughout the Holy Month, Naima also received a three-night stay in a luxurious suite at Kempinski Residences & Suites in Doha and an opportunity to be featured in Bahrain TV’s popular morning show Hala Bahrain.
The runner-ups received prizes too, including cooking classes-for-two. The Top 10 entries will also appear in the daily recipe feature in our sister newspaper, the Gulf Daily News.
