Dakous (Daqoos Recipe) - Arabic Tomato Sauce For Mandi - Hinz Cooking - A Food Blog with Simple and Easy Dinner Recipes (2024)

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Dakous (or Daqoos, Daqqus) is the famous Arabic tomato sauce or salsa that people love to eat with Arabic rice. Mostly served with Kabsa rice (Machboos). Prepared with fresh pulpy tomatoes with the flavor of garlic and olive oil. Seasoned with salt and pepper. It’s a 5 minutes Arabic salsa recipe that anybody can make at home to serve with Arabic food.

What is Daqoos/Dakous?

Dakous or daqoos is the Middle Eastern tomato salsa that people love to eat with Arabic rice dishes especially with kabsa (machboos), or with mandi. It’s a semi-thick tomato salsa, with a sweet, sour, and tangy flavor.

It’s a common recipe and you can easily find it in any Arabic food restaurant all around the world. My mother used to make this salsa with some variations in the traditional dakous recipe as she roast the tomatoes before making the paste and believe me it makes a big difference in taste with roasted tomatoes.

Here I adapt the old-style recipe of dakous which is simple and easy and hardly takes 10 minutes to prepare the complete recipe. If you are making Arabic rice then you can prepare it ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for 3 days.

The pouring of dakous sauce over the rice makes a perfect taste. If you didn’t try it then give it a try and you will love the taste. Sometimes I make to serve with biryani as I feel both compliments with each other.

Other Sauce Recipes: Nacho Cheese Sauce | Honey Garlic Sauce

Ingredients

Fresh Tomatoes: Used fresh pulpy tomatoes.
Tomato Paste: Thick tomato puree will improve the consistency of salsa.
Garlic Cloves: Used grated garlic and cloves to make tomato paste.
Olive Oil: Used extra virgin olive oil.
Salt, Paprika, Black Pepper: Will add salty and tangy taste in the sauce.
Brown Sugar: It will act as a taste enhancer.

The sweet and sour flavor Arabic Dakous salsa is a famous recipe that pairs up well with rice and roasted meat. Make it ahead of time and serve as a side dish with lunch or dinner.

How to Make Daqoos

Here is the step-by-step preparation of Dakous at home. It's simple and easy salsa that goes with several middle eastern food recipes.

1. Take pulpy tomatoes and peel the skin. Cut into rough cubes and make a paste in blender with garlic cloves. It will add a garlicky taste in tomatoes that goes well with salsa.

2. In a frying pan, heat the oil and saute grated garlic. As the garlic starts to change color then add garlicky tomato paste to the pan and give it a good stir. Cook on high heat for few minutes until the tomato paste starts to get thick.

3. Now add tomato paste in sauce and give it a good mix. Season with salt, paprika, and black pepper and mix well.

4. Now add brown sugar to enhance the taste of salsa. Check the consistency and make it according to your taste. If it's too thick then add little water and cook for a few minutes to get the appropriate texture. If it's thick then evaporate the water and cook on high heat.

5. Now the dakous salsa is ready to serve.

Expert Tips

• Roma or plum tomatoes are good to make sauce or salsa due to meaty texture. Here you can check the best tomatoes for sauce.
• Garlic will add a strong pungent flavor and powerful garlicky taste that goes well with sauce.
• Paprika used to add tangy flavor. If you don't want then skip it.
• Brown sugar will add mild sweetness in sauce that makes a perfect sweet and sour combination with seasoning.
• Don't cook so long otherwise the salsa lose the taste.
• Garnish with parsley!

Serving Idea

In Arabic food recipes, salsa makes a perfect combination with Arabic rice. Dakous sauce or salsa is also famous as Kabsa sauce. You can also serve the sauce with Mandi, Kabsa, Maqluba, Madfoon, Madhbi, and other rice recipes.

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