LAHORE: Chef Humaira Amjad gently layered fragrant rice, slow-cooked meat and toasted nuts into a traditional Saudi-style kabsa, a spiced rice dish often served at family gatherings across the Kingdom.
Nearby, another group prepared dakkous, a fresh tomato and chili salsa commonly served alongside kabsa, while others decorated trays of kunafa, the syrup-soaked dessert popular across the Middle East.
Across Pakistan, interest in Saudi cuisine is growing as travel, tourism and cultural ties with the Kingdom deepen. Cooking workshops are attracting people eager to recreate dishes they first encountered while living and working in Saudi Arabia, performing Hajj or Umrah, or simply through a growing appreciation of Gulf food.
Amjad, who spent nearly a decade and a half living in Saudi Arabia before returning to Pakistan, is among a small but growing number of chefs responding to that demand.
“I went to Saudi Arabia in 1994 and stayed there for almost 25 years,” she told Arab News. “Living there was like a fairy tale. We had friends from different Arab countries, and I learned so much about their food, culture and hospitality.”
Although Amjad had loved cooking since childhood, it was in Saudi Arabia that she turned her passion into a profession. She trained under Saudi, Syrian and Egyptian chefs, attended culinary courses in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and New York, and learned family recipes from friends across the Arab world before establishing a baking school in the Kingdom, where she trained more than 20 batches of students.
“Whenever I found an opportunity to learn, I took it,” she said. “My passion kept me going, and my learning process is still continuing.”
Today, Amjad teaches Saudi and wider Arab dishes including kabsa, mandi, a slow-cooked meat and rice dish, hummus, the chickpea dip popular across the Middle East, mutabbal, a smoky eggplant dip, mezze platters of small appetizers, basbousa, a semolina cake soaked in syrup, and kunafa.
“The spices, the cooking methods, and even the presentation are quite similar,” she said. “Pakistanis travel frequently to Makkah and Madinah, so many already love kabsa, mandi, kunafa and other Arabic dishes.”
She said preserving authenticity had always been her priority rather than adapting recipes to Pakistani tastes.
Her teaching journey in Pakistan began almost by accident after she hosted a dinner for friends in 2017, shortly after returning from Saudi Arabia.
“What started with about 20 guests eventually grew into gatherings of almost 200 people,” she said. “People loved the authentic Saudi food and from there the teaching journey kept growing.”
Today, her workshops attract former Saudi residents hoping to recreate familiar flavors as well as home cooks keen to explore Gulf cuisine for the first time.
“People don’t just want the recipes,” Amjad said. “They want to cook the food the way they remember it.”
That was exactly what brought 26-year-old marketing executive Minel Humza, who previously lived in Saudi Arabia, to one of Amjad’s classes.
“Here I finally got to see the actual spices being used and experience the authentic flavors that I remembered from Saudi Arabia,” Humza told Arab News. “Now I’m excited to go home and cook these recipes myself.”
For 19-year-old participant Liyan Amjad, the workshop also offered something difficult to find elsewhere in Pakistan.
“It’s very hard to find authentic Arabic cuisine in Pakistan,” she said. “But the aromas, flavors and spices used here are as authentic as it gets.”
