sabih + amba.

VDuck has a bit of a tradition of loving multi-component street-foodie kinds of things, kind of almost more than anything else when they're really good. Chipotle corn cakes. Fish tacos. Bao. Bhel puri. Maoz Falafel.

I think the above is about ready to join those storied ranks. Indeed, it's essentially a Maoz Falafel salad box without the messy hassle of making falafel. Or a sabih without the bread and eggplant. Anyway the main delivery vehicle here is a cheela made with a handful each of chopped and sauteed spinach and iceberg lettuce, yes iceberg, I think this helps keep it moist and a little crunchy. And then there's only cumin and curry powder as the spices, basically a big falafel pancake.

The other components are zhoug; tahina and/or hummus (storebought); a tomato cucumber onion salad that's basically Momofuku's cucumber pickle plus tomatoes and a red onion; a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, a small pile of pecans, why this works so well I have no idea, you could probably combine the pecans and pomegranate molasses into an interesting spicy sticky nut thing come to think of it; and finally amba, an Israeli mango ketchup that kind of almost stole the show. There should also be fried eggplant in here but I was kind of cooked out when it came right down to it.

Anyway, it's unsurprising I guess that all of this works together so well, but with the addition of amba and its combination with zhoug and hummus it kind of becomes something I'd serve to "guests". In Israel they add a hard-boiled egg, which sounds fucking great. You could probably add a drizzle of yogurt and/or sriracha and that would also be great. Fuck, just keep drizzling things until there's nothing left to drizzle. Drizzle.

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amba. 
250g frozen mango pieces
2 or 3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
juice of a lemon
2 tbsp honey or agave syrup
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp toasted cumin seed
salt to taste
1/2 cup to 1 cup water

Mmm, yeah, just blitz everything except the water in a food processor, adding enough of the water to make it blitzable, and then cook it for 10-15 minutes on the stove, adding the rest of the water to get to a ketchup-like consistency. Adjust to get to ketchup-like levels of salt and sweetness and sourness. Use liberally.

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