Khaled Huriah: The charismatic Emirati who’s famous for more than just his food

Gulf News

For in one of the houses, with the UAE flag hoisted on the roof, lives one of the country’s celebrities who is known equally for his larger than life personality as well as for the Emirati food served at the Khaled Huriah Public Kitchen. Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos

Transcript

00:00The Khaled Hurriyya Public Kitchen is named after the man Khaled Mohamed Abdallah Al-Hamadi, who owns the business.

00:08Hurriyya, which means freedom in Arabic, is Khaled's moniker,

00:11coined by him at a younger age when he first started out as an avid

00:16supporter of the UAE national team, as well as the Sharjah Football Club.

00:20I gave myself the nickname Hurriyya because I am the free, he said.

00:25Khaled hails from the town of Khurfaqan in the emirate of Sharjah and comes from a family background whose professions

00:31consisted of engineers, teachers and high-ranking police officers.

00:36However, Hurriyya decided to forge a different path for his career, from a young age when he

00:41expressed an interest in cooking and learned recipes from the local fishermen who cooked their daily catch for customers.

00:48As Hurriyya took the Gulf News team into his kitchen, his legion of fans

00:52continuously watched his live updates of the interview, which accumulated up to 7,900 views in one hour and a half.

01:01Hurriyya set up his first public kitchen on Sharjah's Wasit Street in

01:051989 and has been serving authentic Emirati food to generations of families for 30 years.

01:22We used to cook on wood, random things, and so on.

01:26The famous food we have in Ramadan is the Haris, the Haris, the biryani, the khabees, the madrouba.

01:33Back inside the kitchen, Hurriyya's staff continue to diligently work as they start to prepare

01:39receiving customers at noon. The busiest time in the kitchen is from 6 a.m.

01:43to 8 a.m., when employees start preparing the ingredients and cook the batches of chicken, meat and fish from an area of large

01:51metal frying pans and pots.

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