Dubai Chocolate Shortbread Bars
Friday night dinner party: garlic butter pita, chicken shawarma, dubai chocolate bars - wrapping up a freezing week with chicken carving theatrics and hot buttered pita
Feb 16, 2026
Whenever I have people over for Friday nights I call it Shabbat-sorta. A Friday night dinner always feels distinct from any other night, so it deserves some kind of name. But calling my dinner actual Shabbat isn’t quite right either. We mix meat and dairy with a bit of reckless abandon and sometimes say all the prayers, sometimes don’t.
There’s always a sense of conflict, too: like my mind is telling me I should be going out, but for some reason, here I am choosing to stay in. When the weather drops into the range of “Air Will Easily Freeze Off Your Appendages”, I feel less of an issue not stepping outside. Staying in on Fridays feels more purposeful, more intentional, deserving of a title, and an attempt at consistency. After every Shabbat-sorta, I tell myself I want to throw more, but it’s hard to keep the regularity! One every once in a while feels good enough to me.
I built this whole meal around a very specific shawarma meat-skewer contraption-apparatus I’ve been seeing on Instagram. I’ve tried making shawarma at home in a sorta-version, either by grilling it or charring the chicken under a broiler, but it’s never nearly as good as what I could get at a pita shop. So in hopes that this new apparatus could bring me one step closer to real shawarma, I gave in to the new piece of cooking equipment that’s now shoved somewhere underneath my sink.
Turns out, this skewer pan thing is now my new best friend. I thought it was the coolest thing ever to slice and shred the chicken off of a literal spit for my friends right at the dinner table. It felt restaurant-y and sort of entertain-y yet also absurd in a good way? Mixing the tender pieces of dark meat chicken through a medley of spiced and roast vegetables, with plenty of pan juices, felt like the proper way to end a week. The options feel endless too with my new pan. Roitsserie chicken? Some kind of dessert? Who knows what else will come.
As for the rest of the menu: pickles, garlic-butter pita, labneh, and Dubai chocolate bars.
I would write more but alas I’m tied up for the next two weeks, so a bit briefer of a newsletter will have to suffice for now <3
Sorta,
Ryan
Hey! My name is Ryan Nordheimer. Welcome to my cooking and baking site. I’m a 25-year old home cook living in the East Village in New York City. Hopefully you enjoy my food through my own, tried-and-true recipes.
Ingredients (12)
Ingredients (12)
For the shortbread
For the pistachio filling
For the chocolate
Instructions
For the shortbread
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour (1 ½ cups), sugar (¼ cup), salt (1 tsp), and cinnamon (½ tsp). Drizzle in the butter (1 stick) and stir to combine completely.
Grease an 8in. square cake pan with some oil. Line it with two pieces of parchment or foil in an X to create 4 overhangs. Press the shortbread into the base. Dock it all over with a fork.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden across the top.
When it comes out of the oven, use a measuring cup to press/compact the shortbread into the cake pan to ensure it doesn't crumble later.
For the pistachio filling
Meanwhile, melt the butter (1 stick) over medium-high heat in a large sauté pan. Shred the kataifi dough (10 oz) over the butter. Stir until the dough turns golden brown and is crunchy, about 15 minutes.
Dump into a large bowl. Add the pistachio creme (2 cups), tahini (¾ cup), powdered sugar (¾ cup), and salt (¾ tsp). Taste for seasoning (if it's not sweet enough add more sugar). And if you'd like add a drop or two of green food dye for a brighter color.
Add filling to the cake pan, level it out, and stick in the freezer.
For the chocolate
Melt the chocolate (6 oz) in the microwave on 50% power, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted, about 1-2 minutes.
Dump over the pistachio filing and quickly smooth it out. Use a fork if you wish to create a pattern on top.
Stick in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes to harden the chocolate.
Then cut into 24 rectangles and garnish with flaky salt. This is best starred in the fridge and will last for a week.
Notes
Notes
In my video, I made the recipe from the “Lebanese Baking” cookbook by Maureen Abood. The recipe above is one that I developed last year that is similar in concept. Choice is yours.
