Here’s A Full Three-Course Maltese Meal That Will Trick Your Friends And Family Into Thinking You Can Cook
Dinner parties can be a bit of a hassle to organise. Thinking about what to cook, buying stuff and understanding recipe steps take up a lot of your time. Not to mention all the planning and plate counting. Pair that with traditional Maltese food, and you’re looking at a recipe for disaster. Unless you’re prepared.
Lovin Malta is always here for you when it comes to cooking, and today we’re going to walk you through a traditionally Maltese three-course meal you can cook to trick people into believing you’re a master chef.
Starter
Bebbux bl-Aljoli
Ingredients
Bebbux
- 2 kilos snails
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves crushed
- 2 chopped chillis
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 2 chopped carrots
- 1 tsp cumin
- 2 cups white wine
- 1/2 chopped celery stick
- 4 bay leaves
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 finely chopped green pepper minus the seeds
- 1 can polpa
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- Parsley
- Marjoram
- Mint
Bebbux
Wash your snails well in salt water. The best way to do this is to actually dip them in the sea, maybe tie them to your waist and have a good swim, whatever.
Get the largest pot you own and throw all of your snails in along with enough water to cover them properly.
Put in your celery, carrot, salt and pepper and cover. Cook them for about 20 minutes.
Be careful as this could kind of boil over and make a proper mess in your kitchen. Remove from heat and drain.
In a well sized frying pan heat the oil and add the onions, chilli and garlic until golden. Add curry, fennel, cumin, bay leaves and vinegar. Stir that stuff well constantly, you don’t want your spices to get burnt. Use low heat.
Add lemon juice, fish sauce and wine. After around a minute or so pour your polpa in.
Leave to simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes on super low heat. Keep on adding water to the sauce whenever it looks like it’s going to dry up.
Add your dear cooked snails to the sauce and cover with some more water, cooking them for at least two hours, again, on super low heat.
Let the weird sauce you made reduce a bit and get thick, see if any extra seasoning it might need. Trust your guts.
Add the rest of the herbs to the mixture when you feel like you’re done cooking this stuff.
Aljoli Paste
Grab your food processor and add the bread and garlic. Pulse it up a bit and add the tuna and anchovies along with a dash of Worcestershire sauce and pulse again. If it looks a bit dry add some water. Pulse again.
Throw in your onion, pulse, add vinegar, capers and mint. Pulse. Add the basil leaves and pulse again. If needed add some more water to make it all pasty and nice.
Transfer it to a bowl and drizzle with some more olive oil. If you’re into spicy stuff add some chilli flakes to the top.
You successfully cooked bebbux man, proset!
Main Course
Fenek Moqli
Ingredients
We have no idea for how many people you’re going to cook, but about half a rabbit is enough to feed a regular person. So calculate the ingredients accordingly, we’re no math magicians.
- 1 Rabbit sliced into Maltese-sized pieces
- Sunflower oil
- 2 Garlic gloves chopped
- A bottle of white wine
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 1 star anise
- Salt and pepper
Leave your rabbit to marinate overnight in wine, bayleaves, anise and vinegar. Just pour enough wine to marinate your rabbit, and drink the rest in bed.
Grab a sizeable pan and cook your garlic in oil, until it’s kind of still white, but a little bit yellow-y, slightly soft and slippery looking.
Remove garlic from oil and set aside.
Grab your rabbit chunks and fry until brown on all sides.
Add all the marinated stuff to the rabbit and cover. Slow cook on super low heat for around an hour or so. If the liquid looks like it’s drying up, just add more wine to it.
You can serve this up with either roast potatoes or French fries. Mashed potatoes are cool too, but you’ve already done the bebbux and all so might as well just serve it with fries.
Dessert
Pasti Roża
Ok so for this one you can totally cheat and buy a ready made sponge cake. But if you’re an honest person like us, you need to make your own sponge — it will probably taste better anyway.
We’re writing this recipe out for a 7-8 inch pan. In order to get this sponge right you really need to take extra care with the temperature and flour stuff, we’ll explain.
Ingredients
Sponge
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 really large eggs at room temperature
- Vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 1 cup and 1 tbsp sifted cake flour
The Pink stuff
- 2 packets of strawberry jelly
- 3/4 cup boiling water
- 4 cups desiccated coconut shreds
- Vanilla essence
- 1/2 cup strawberry jam
- 3/4 cup cold water
Preheat your oven to 170 degrees. Butter your pan like there’s no tomorrow and add a bit of flour to it.
Grab your mixer and throw in the eggs, lemon zest, sugar and salt. Beat the mixture until it’s fluffy, that is about 20 minutes on medium speed.
Pour flour in, a bit at a time and mix gently.
Pour mixture into cake pan and bake for about 40 mins.
For the love of God do not open the oven at any point. Or else the cake will be all ażmu and stuff.
When the 40 minutes are passed you can check your cake by poking the middle with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, your cake is totally done, wow!
Remove it from the oven and let it cool, loosen the edges around with a knife and flip upside down on a rack.
Cut into ok-sized portions.
Mix the jelly, hot and cold water. Add the vanilla essence and strawberry jam. Mix.
Leave to thicken very slightly.
Throw the cake portions in your jelly water, let them soak for a couple of seconds. Try not to ruin them.
Roll them around in the coconut shreds and place on a baking sheet to dry.
When they’re all done pop them in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours. Serve with cream.
Congratulations. You’re finally done.
Tag someone who could use these recipes in the comments below!
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