Camel carpaccio at Emirates Palace

Camel carpaccio. Courtesy Emirates Palace

The chefs at Emirates Palace always try to offer guests a local touch that reflects UAE culture, with camel dishes served in several of the restaurants, and recently I had the opportunity to try camel carpaccio – that’s right, raw camel meat. The dish was a stand-out at last week’s Taste of Emirates Palace culinary evening, where invited VIP guests were treated to more than 50 signature dishes from all of the hotel’s restaurants. “Our chefs were excited to showcase their best dishes to our VIP clientele,” said Sandro Gamba, the executive chef at Emirates Palace. “As a little gift, we gave our guests recipes from each chef and a small jar of homemade Arabic spices, a specialty of the Oriental Kitchen, to bring a sample of our passion and diversity into their own kitchens at home.”

Head chefs from each of the Palace’s restaurants, including award-winning Mezzaluna, BBQ Al Qasr, Sayad and Mezlai, presented their best dishes.

Camel meat has long been served in the UAE as part of celebratory meals and on special occasions. Some local traditions and recent research also contend that camel meat has significant health benefits when consumed as part of a balanced diet. The camel carpaccio is available from Emirate’s Palace’s room-service menu, so in order to try the unusual and tasty dish, priced at Dh80, you’ll need to treat yourself to a room in the hotel. Or, you could try making it at home.

Camel carpaccio

Ingredients

300g camel fillet

60g rocca leaves

100g dates

10g sea salt

10g crushed black pepper

100g pomegranate seeds

20ml olive oil

10g Affilla cress

10g Sakura cress

10g sumac powder

Method

There are a couple of different ways in which carpaccio can be made, but regardless of which method you choose, the key is to get the slices of fillet ultra-thin. The most basic method is to simply slice the raw fillet. Many recipes suggest freezing the fillet before carving it; this makes it much easier to cut really thin slices. Alternatively slice the fillet and place the pieces of meat between two sheets of cling film, then gently hammer them out and roll over them with a rolling pin until wafer-thin.

Step 1

Enclose the camel tightly with rocca leaves and dates in plastic wrap and freeze for 60 minutes (this will make it easier to thinly slice).

Step 2

Unwrap the camel and very thinly slice, using a sharp knife.

Step 3

Arrange 4 or 5 slices of camel on each serving plate and drizzle with oil. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, sumac powder, Serve with mixed cresses and pomegranate seeds