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Bahraini chef Suman Ali Sayed is cooking up an array of flavourful and tasty dishes with a traditional twist in a bid to highlight her heritage and food culture ... 10,715km away in Toronto.
The 28-year-old corporate chef and food content creator, known as ‘The 86 Kitchen’ on Instagram and YouTube, has been taking Canadian news networks and media platforms by storm with her Bahrain-inspired cuisine and charitable efforts.
Her latest endeavour which had Canadian foodies salivating was her collaborative Pop-Up ‘Day at the Farm’ event with Wild Meadows Farm where she cooked over a pit fire.
People had a tour of the farm and sat on hay bales and apple orchard boxes, distanced from one another, as Suman prepared a three-course field cookery dining experience for 75 people.
“The Pop-Up was a great success,” said Suman who has been featured in a Canadian food docu-web series called From the Wild as a guest chef that brings Bahraini flare to wild Canadian food ingredients.
“It was in collaboration with the farm which is a Southern Ontario sustainable meat farm.
“Ever since I left the kingdom, whenever I say ‘I’m from Bahrain’, 99 per cent of people respond by asking where it is or think it’s part of Saudi Arabia or the UAE. I’m on a mission to change that.
“My aim is to educate and share Bahrain’s food culture and heritage. Our ancient culinary techniques and style along with the combination of spices and dishes are very unique. I dislike it when someone just considers Bahraini food as being only falafel and hummus. There is so much to offer!”
For her first course, Suman prepared miniature shawarmas made up of pita bread, pickled turnip puree, hung labneh and Aleppo marinated beef brisket.
Her second course featured nose to tail beef kebabs on spruce sticks, dry eggplant stuffed with bison meat cooked in filfil harra (spicy long pepper chili), green sauce Sahawiq (a hot sauce), smoked squash and saffron puree with wild edible flowers.
The third course was an ode to Umm Ali, a popular bread-style Bahraini pudding.
She made a farm-style brioche pudding with Ontario peaches, topped with maple, berries and sumac compote.
She showcased more of her pit-fire prowess in the two-time James Beard nominated web series cooking elk and deer meat kebabs on cedar wood sticks along with morel mushroom mahshi stuffed with squab (wild bird) in the forest.
Aside from walking on the wild side, Suman replicated a family cheesecake belonging to Ontario’s minister, made large batches of it and donated it to homeless shelters, as well as orphanages and other needy communities.
Suman, a corporate chef for Reef Kitchens & Tech which is a ghost kitchen concept, said: “I wanted to contribute to the local community while staying at home during these times and as a Chef, I want to inspire people to rethink the way charity and donations can be performed.”
