Chef Antoine's fresh eggs, a gift for his guests from L'Orient-Le Jour. (Credit: Carla Henoud)
Chef Antoine el-Hajj, simply known as Chef Antoine among his fans, has been cooking live on air for more than 25 years. During his two-hour TV show dubbed, “Maakoul el hana,” which is aired on Télé-Liban on a daily basis, except the weekends, the host gives his loyal audience the secrets of the very industry he knows perfectly well.
Every day, except the weekends, he unremittingly prepares dishes he re-adapts according to the seasons, and answers all questions as seriously as in the early days of the show, when he gave cooking lessons on the Antenne Plus TV channel. Only two years after setting foot in a TV studio, he joined Télé-Liban. Since then, chef Antoine has been highlighted as the hero of the Lebanese housewife par excellence.
It was in his sewing workshop where chefs and hotel staff uniforms are made that he hosted us. It was not in the kitchen where the smell of a cooked meal on the stove made for his employees for lunch (it is 1 p.m.) aroused the taste buds.
Chef Antoine is happy to share his memories and recipes, as he does on the screen, as he has done with his students for so many years. He said, “I have never been reluctant to disclose all my cooking secrets on the screen. I always try to answer all of the audience’s questions, even the weirdest ones. It would be unfortunate for housewives not to make good dishes, while things become easy when the recipe is well-followed and the ingredients are good.”.
Commenting on the famous vegan hamburger, the recipe of which he once gave on TV and which is made of bread, vegetables and … “500 grams of ground lamb,” he said, “I wanted to joke with the vegetarians and to tease them a bit, by telling them that they can hide the meat under a multitude of layers of vegetables with my recipe!” The video, of course, quickly went viral on social media.
The sweetness of childhood
At the beginning of his career in TV, “I knew all the recipes except those of Arab pastries. I hired a pastry chef from Tripoli for three months, who gave me private lessons and taught me the skill,” he said.
It was quite an investment, since the said pastry chef charged $50 per recipe. “After learning how to make it, I would make it in front of him, to be sure that I had grasped everything,” he added.
Pastry was his first love. His childhood dream was to open his own pastry shop in his native village of Kornayel, in the Baabda area.
“I used to help my mother in making cakes. At the age of 14, my parents took me to a cookery school, run by one of their acquaintances who advised them to enroll me in a culinary school and not just pastry. When I came back home, I was unhappy. I cried all night. I even wanted to go back to his place in Beirut in a bid to have him change his mind,” he recounted.
Although reluctant, chef Antoine studied for three years in the cookery school and was quick to embark on his career in Lebanon, Iraq and Switzerland. “There was a joint project between the Lebanese state and a Swiss cookery school. In Geneva, they offered me to stay, to learn English and French and then to be in charge of a school department focusing on Middle Eastern cuisine.”
He spent a few months there before returning home where he started teaching at the Superior Institute of Hotel Management in Dekwaneh. During his 42 years-long career there, Chef Antoine gave classes, served as head of the test kitchen, and then the institute director for more than 10 years. “I loved teaching …”
A stalled project
Chef Antoine retired three years ago, just before Lebanon's financial crisis began. It was even before he was able to carry out his dream project of opening a large kitchen workshop where thousands of meals are made daily and distributed to the four corners of Lebanon, as well as other frozen meals made available in the supermarkets. Everything would be sold at unbeatable prices.
“The world has changed, as well as the people’s needs. More women work and many single people live alone now. People have the right to eat healthy ready meals at affordable prices,” he said.
The current situation has dealt a blow to this project, and the war in Ukraine, “made it almost unachievable.”
“In addition to the Lebanese economic crisis, there is the conflict in Europe. The prices of all goods increased, including flour and oil. This dream has become impossible at least for now,” he said without any regret.
The cook that the housewives treasure is a reasonable man. At this especially difficult time, he made changes to his recipes, in the belief that many households can no longer afford to buy meat or chicken. “I revisited potatoes, lentils, beans, pasta, sweet potatoes and Jerusalem artichoke recipes, so that everyone, including children, would love them.”
Chef Antoine can talk for hours about cooking, flavors and perfumes, because his life revolves around his passion and this job that made him famous and happy. “Any dish is delicious, when it is made properly and when it is not drowned in salt and spices.”
This purist, who likes true and traditional flavors, added, “The new trend of fusion cuisine is not bad, provided that the dish is not labeled as traditional Lebanese cuisine. Hummus, for instance, is a paste of chickpeas and sesame. There is no beetroot red hummus or broccoli green hummus. They may be good, but they can no longer be labeled as real Lebanese hummus.”
He has even written several books on the subject including “Ma'kul al hana,” which was released on Jan. 1, 2013 (Hachette Antoine editions) and offers 600 recipes of appetizers, main courses and desserts. It is a bestseller. There is also “Al Founoun el Foundoukiah,” which consists of three manuals for his students, and which he co-wrote with his colleagues and teachers from the Dekwaneh institute, Ansas Fayed and Antoine Waked. Finally, he recorded for MBC channel 20 episodes on Lebanese cuisine, pastries and juices.
Away from the stoves
In the 1980s, Chef Antoine opened a sewing workshop in Baouchrieh focusing on uniforms for chefs and hotel staff. “When this idea came to my mind, there was only one firm that had monopolized the market and the prices charged were very expensive,” he said.
Cooking has a share even in these workshops where aprons, work uniforms and even shoes are made and sold. He gives the industry’s tips to the dressmakers, and meals are undoubtedly cooked up at every lunchtime based on his recipes … In this time of Lent, vegetarian meals are made. Chef Antoine, an animal lover, happily and proudly speaks of his home in his native village of Kornayel, where he raises a German shepherd, chickens and rabbits. He was never able to slaughter one of his chickens or kill a rabbit, he said.
“I offer the rabbits as gifts to my friends who have children and I sell the chickens’ freshly laid eggs, here in my shop, or on-demand. I have 40 hens that live all summer outdoors. I only give them seeds, wheat, corn and barley to eat.”
Chef Antoine, 69, whose energy has not diminished and who is partially retired now, spends his time between his sewing workshop, Télé-Liban’s studios, his residence in Antelias and his village house.
Generous and friendly, he is not as strict as he sometimes appears on TV: he offered his visitors from L’Orient-Le Jour about 20 freshly laid eggs “straight from my chicken coop” before they left. “Come back whenever you please!” he stated.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Joelle El Khoury
