A comforting, cumin-spiced bean breakfast: Walleed Rasheed’s recipe for ful medames | Australian food and drink

By day, Walleed Rasheed is a Melbourne-based analyst in the corporate world. Outside of office hours, he’s the eponymous “Fresh Prince of Baklava”.

“When you are raised in an Egyptian household, it is all about food,” he says. “Because of that I’ve always loved to cook, plus I’m a real sweet tooth. Baklava? My favourite dessert.”

He started baking the sweet pastry for colleagues before launching his baklava delivery business in 2015 as a hobby, while juggling work and family.

“I averaged about three hours’ sleep but never felt tired. I loved it.”

After a stint as a Masterchef Australia contestant in 2019, popularity for his baklava grew – and Rasheed found a company to take the weight of day-to-day baklava production. The Fresh Prince of Baklava does flaky, faithful renditions of the pastry with pistachios or roasted almonds, plus more contemporary versions with Nutella, Oreos or Snickers.

“The flavours are inspired by my Middle Eastern heritage but also by my life here,” says Rasheed, who learnt to cook by watching family members. “It was all by eye, by taste, recipes and techniques passed down through the generations. My grandmother in Egypt was just unbelievable.”

Outside the realm of sweets, Rasheed has a fondness for ful medames, a popular Egyptian breakfast dish of fava beans stewed with cumin, lemon and olive oil. “It is easy to prepare and great to share … This is something I cook for my girls all the time.”

The magic of ful medames comes together at the end, where the richness and texture of the mashed beans is lifted by the sweet, fresh acidity of the tomato and parsley salad. “It is everyone around a table, eating from the same plate,” says Rasheed. “Soft bread is a must.”

Walleed Rasheed’s ful medames – recipe

(Pictured above)

Prep 10 min
Cook 10 min
Serves 4

1 x 400g tin fava beans
100ml extra virgin olive oil
Juice of one lemon
20g ground cumin
Salt and freshly cracked pepper
Soft white bread, to serve

For the tomato parsley salad
2 large tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped
1 small cucumber, roughly diced
½ red onion, thinly sliced
30ml sherry vinegar
10g honey
50ml extra virgin olive oil
½ cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
½ tsp sumac

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the fava beans, olive oil, lemon juice and cumin, plus salt and pepper to taste. Bring the mixture to a simmer while gently stirring and mashing. Remove from the heat, taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed, and set aside until ready to serve.

To make the salad, combine the tomato, cucumber and red onion in a bowl. Whisk together the sherry vinegar, honey and extra virgin olive oil and pour over the tomato mixture, and gently combine. In a separate bowl, gently combine the parsley and sumac.

To serve, spoon the ful medames into a large bowl, and top with the tomato salad. Sprinkle with the parsley mixture, and serve with soft white bread.