Yalla Chicken and Lashou Beef

This is a story of 3 different nationalities in somerville kitchen, meat and chicken on hand, but no one has a meal plan.

Yalla is "come on" or "get moving" in Lebanese.  As my not-functioning-so-well oven was causing issues, the hungry Canadian amongst us applied the term appropriately calling Yalla Chicken to cook it fast.

Then the Lebanese wanted to make a side dish with nothing on hand - what's better than Iranian rice.

The recipe is a bit too complex to include here; and I am no expert at making it. But I was proud of adding the towel between the pot and the cover as I have seen Iranians do so often when cooking their rice.

The Iranian spiced up the meat with a mix of Italian spices. But the Canadian kept on wondering why are we having meat and chicken for dinner.

As Lashou means "what for" in Lebanese, the Canadian correctly poised the term Lashou Beef to keep wondering about why the meat.



At the end of it all, dinner was delicious, everyone had fun and language classes dominated the night. The rice cooked by the Lebanese looked very Iranian, according to the Iranian. And the Canadian got the Lebanese pronunciation almost perfect repeating Yalla Chicken and Lashou Beef throughout the evening.