Quick and Easy Za’atar and Labneh Spaghetti | Ham El-Waylly | NYT Cooking

Get Ham’s recipe: https://nyti.ms/3ThU8Tr

Ham El-Waylly is in the studio making his recipe for Za’atar and Labneh Spaghetti! Creamy labneh, a Middle Eastern yogurt, produces a pasta dish with the texture of an alfredo, but with a bright tang that brings levity. Labneh provides a rich, luscious texture, but strained yogurts, like Greek yogurt or skyr, work well as substitutes. Be sure to add the dairy at the end, and don’t let it come to a boil while you stir. Boiling will cause the yogurt to break, leaving you with a sauce that isn’t creamy or rich. If the pasta sauce tightens up and breaks from sitting for too long, pour in some reserved pasta water and stir vigorously over medium-low heat until the sauce comes back together, lusciously smooth, saucy and glossy.

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Hi I’m ham I’m a chef a recipe developer an amateur dog walker professional paraglider and today what am I doing we’re making zatar and lbna spaghetti usually we have the lbna spread over fresh P the zat on top but there’s so many other things that you can do with that magical combination of

Labna and zatar that combination is perfect together and you can use it for so many different things don’t be limited by just spreading it on to bread so growing up zatar and labna were Staples we always had it at home it was a component of multiple snacks dinners lunches school lunches breakfast labna

If you’re not familiar is a strained or hung yogurt so what happens is it strains out all of that whe and you end up with this like sour cream cheesy kind of texture o it’s absolutely incredible and with some olive oil on top it’s so

Good you can just eat it with a spoon zat is an Herby blend found throughout the Middle East and a lot of people think it’s like something you can make at home that it’s a mixture of thyme and oregano and all these things but no

Zatar is its own herb it’s not just the blend it’s also the name of a plant it’s a specific kind of plant that has kind of a mixture of flavor between Thyme and oregano don’t accept lowquality zat go out find a high quality one and if you look on the ingredients the first

Ingredient should either be Z or wild th in my Bolivian family you have a light breakfast in the morning and then lunch is your main meal often I was left to fend for myself when it came to dinner times and this lebna and zatar spaghetti was something I turned to often because

We always had spaghetti around we always had lebna around we always had zard around and it was very easy to put together you don’t really need a lot of skill so this was kind of the first recipe that I perfected and it’s something that I still make to this day

Cuz it’s so satisfying and so easy to make all right let’s do this so I’ve got my gigantic pot of boiling water to cook my pasta seasoning your pasta water very important I like to think of it as like a slightly over seasoned soup so you want to season your water and you’re

Like ooh this this is like a tasty water flavored broth and then go a little bit further you want to overseason your pasta cuz if your pasta gets too salty then you’re like you’re really limited with how well you can season your sauce or how much cheese you can put on cuz

It’s really going to take it over the top and at the end of the day your pasta is still going to be too salty show some restraint I’m using a spoon not my hand I’m not doing fistfuls of salt here so we’re going to spoon this give it a stir luckily since the

Water is boiling the salt dissolves almost instantly so you don’t really need to wait very long to taste it wow nailed it on the first try that’s amazing we got that on tape right so every spaghetti has a different thy on the package so I always thy my pasta by

Picking the lowest Thyme and then taking away a minute and that’s when I pull out the pasta to check it cuz then you know if their timing is wrong I trust nobody you still have like a little bit of a buffer give it a stir while the spaghetti Cooks I’m going to

Do the only bit of knife work that this recipe needs which is thinly slice a whole bunch of garlic I know this is an obscene amount of garlic I really freaking like garlic especially with pasta and especially with labna and zat they’re just really good friends they

Get along really really well I believe our spaghetti is now ready take a little bit out give it a taste what you’re looking for is the finest fin just Fleck of white in the middle for that alente Vibe you know what I mean and now we

Drain so I have a bowl underneath to trap all that pasta water cuz I’m going to need it so I’m going to pour some both all over the counter and into this handy dandy jug ready to go we’ve got our pasta water a healthy glug of olive oil olive oil hot I

Acknowledge that this is an insane amount of garlic but just trust me this pasta can take it it needs it and then we’re just going to fry our garlic in the olive oil until it’s lightly golden brown and really fragrant I want to stop this cooking immediately so I’m just

Going to give it a little hit of pasta water off the heat and then pop it back and now we add our sta give it a toss you want to really incorporate it this is way too dry I definitely need more pasta water I’m just going to add a

Little bit more even though I’ve already added my pasta water I’m going to hold on to it because once I add the lebna I might need to loosen it just to keep it glossy and creamy and smooth so hold onto it until right before you serve it

Cuz if it starts to cool off it’ll start to tighten and conal a bit just a splash of pasta water will bring it back to life so we’re going to let that chill together let the olive oil the garlic the spaghetti the pasta water mingle and then once it’s feeling glossy and has

Thickened slightly we’re going to go in with our lebna so I’m going to add our lebna as soon as I add my lebna I turn the heat as low as possible I do not want this to simmer or boil at this point cuz then you risk it

Breaking and I just vigorously stir the Lebon to the Spaghetti until it melts and coats every strand look at how nice and glossy and smooth that is I’m going to show you another variation of this lebna spaghetti without Zat and instead with parm and black pepper cuz this is

Actually how my mom made us Alfredo at home I’m going to take half of this lebet spaghetti and I’m going to turn it into our pseudo Alfredo and all you need to do is just add a generous amount of parm some black pepper stir all that together until the

Parm melts so the parm is going to really tighten the spaghetti up so you’re going to want to give it a splash of pasta water and then just keep stirring it over very low heat until the parm fully melts and then you got your quick easy just as tasty if not in my

Opinion no offense Italians but kind of better than Alfredo but like I don’t think Italians even claim Alfredo so I’m not offending Italians the parm is fully melted our pasta looks fantastic and we are good to Plate up and eat good L the spaghetti that’s so luscious you’d think

That there’s like a bunch of cream and butter and stuff in there n man strained yogurt the Heap of Z healthy glug of olive oil on top and that’s our pasta one and here we have our our pseudo Alfredo oh this cheesy creamy glossy little black pepper on top olive oil as

Well okay we’re ready to tast I’m going to go into my pseudo Alfredo First it’s really good the parm really comes through and then you get a back note of toasted garlic you get some olive oil throughout you just get a little bit of tank from the lebna it’s fantastic it’s what keeps you eating cuz it never gets too heavy now the star of

The show The zatar I always like to eat this with a side car of zatar as well since you’re just putting it on top the bottom layer might need another little hit so I like to top it as I need It wow the herbaceousness from the zatar and that sumac in there really combines with the lebna and you get this really Pleasant acidity throughout it’s creamy and Lush and rich without being too heavy if you have any leftovers throw it in the fridge it’s just as delicious

Cold you can find this recipe and many other delicious ones on nyt Cooking