Читать книгу Levant: Recipes and memories from the Middle East - Anissa Helou - Страница 6

My relationship with family meals has been one of love, hate, then love again. As a child, I loved eating en famille, sitting at our large, solid wood dining table in Beirut with my father at one end, my mother at the other and my siblings and I on either side.

We were four girls and a boy. I was in the middle with two older sisters, a younger brother and a baby sister. My two older sisters and I were very close in age, and we formed one camp on one side of the table while my brother and baby sister formed their own on the other side. Throughout the meal, we shifted between conspiratorial conversations within our camp, to silly arguments either within our camp or with my brother’s.

My father watched over us kindly while my mother busied herself with the food, telling us to eat if we didn’t (not something she had to do often) or to calm down if we got too excited. She also told our maid when to clear up, when to bring more water or the fruit, and so on. My mother was, still is, the most wonderful cook and she prepared delicious meals that we all ate heartily.

However, as much as I loved my mother’s food, I loved my grandmother’s better. She had been widowed early and lived with my aunt and four uncles in the Christian part of town – we were on the Muslim side – in a large airy flat with beautiful Art Deco furniture. We visited her often. Her kitchen was like ours, with lovely white marble counter tops. And although she cooked like my mother – she did after all teach her everything she knew, the way my mother taught me – she had little touches that made her food even more exquisite. For instance, the Lebanese always cook stuffed vegetables on a bed of bones for a richer sauce. My mother simply washed the bones and lined the pot with them, while my grandmother parboiled and rinsed the bones before using them. This, she said, helped get rid of the scum the bones release during cooking and made for a cleaner and more refined sauce. She had similar sophisticated touches for almost every dish she prepared.

Also, the meals at her house were jollier than at our own. My aunt and uncles were not that much older than us – people married very young in those days – and even though they were no longer of an age to be playmates, they were playful with us.

We ate in the kitchen unless sitto (granny in Arabic) had guests in which case we moved to the dining room. We often went there early and I would go straight into the kitchen to sit on the white marble counter, right by where my grandmother prepared our lunch. Sometimes, I helped with simple tasks such as bunching up the parsley for the tabbuleh but most times I just looked. My desire to be in the kitchen was not so much to help, nor really to watch the cooking, although I learned a lot by just being there, but rather because I wanted to taste everything. My mother never let me do this at home, insisting that I should wait for my meal, whereas my grandmother always gave us tastes of whatever she was preparing. I do the same, offering tastes to whomever is with me in the kitchen, not to mention my tasting everything as well.

My mother and aunt were in charge of setting the table and they always laid a selection of nibbles called ‘zinet el-tawleh’ (decoration of the table so that it looks appetising even before any of the prepared dishes are served). Their ‘decoration’ consisted of olives, cucumbers and carrots, cut into sticks and seasoned with a little salt and lemon juice, a bowl of hommus or labneh drizzled with olive oil, bright pink home-made turnip pickles (made that colour by adding raw beetroot to the brine), fresh nuts when in season or roasted ones when not, and of course bread. The meal itself consisted of a couple of salads, either tabbuleh or fattush plus a seasonal one such as tomatoes, purslane and meqteh (a kind of wild, pale ridged cucumber) and a main course, often stuffed vegetables, which we loved and which my grandmother regularly made for us. We always finished our meals with fruit.

If we happened to visit on a Sunday, she would grill kebabs. Sunday is barbecue day for pretty much everyone in Lebanon, and on those days, I would abandon my grandmother to be with my uncles on the balcony where they set up the manqal (Arabic for the small metal barbecue used throughout the Middle East) to start the charcoal fire.

When we finished eating, we moved to the drawing room for the grown-ups to drink their Turkish coffee but before that one of us girls had to grind the coffee in a beautiful brass grinder. After drinking the coffee, they all turned over their cups to let the dregs drain out, leaving patterns inside each cup that my aunt read to tell each their future. I loved listening to her interpretation of the various patterns. If the coffee dribbled down the side leaving a clear white line, it meant the person had an open road ahead of him/her. If the coffee was thick and the residue stayed on the bottom of the cup, it meant the person’s heart was dark and heavy, and if there was a big white patch on the bottom of the cup, there was marriage in the air, and so on.

My aunt was very beautiful with long wavy dark hair like Ava Gardner’s. She actually looked like her and when I met Ava Gardner many years later, she told me I looked like her sister; I didn’t say it but I immediately thought she must have been the family’s ugly duckling! In any case, once my aunt had done her coffee-cup reading, she played music to dance with one of my uncles. And despite my having no sense of rhythm, I would jump up to join them. They were very kind and never resented my interfering with their Paso Doble or Cha-Cha-Cha.

Those were our family meals in the city but I had just as many joyous meals in the mountains where we spent our summers, either in Mashta el-Helou, my father’s ancestral home in Syria or in Rechmaya, my maternal grandmother’s village in Lebanon. Sometimes, my parents rented a house in one of the Lebanese mountain resort towns for us to spend time on our own.

Then I grew into a moody teenager, and started spending all my time reading in my room. It was around that time that I began to hate family meals, often insisting on eating in my room, which for some reason my mother agreed to.

This antagonistic attitude lasted until I left Lebanon for London. Away from home, my relationship with family meals turned to love again, although not immediately. First, I went through a phase of wanting to eat out all the time and hardly ever cooked at home. Then I started cooking for friends, both European and Lebanese food but it wasn’t until I started writing about food that I became interested in family meals again, not only to soak up the warm atmosphere but also to learn more about the different dishes of each of the countries I visited and the customs that surrounded serving and eating them. What was interesting was that in many parts of the Levant and beyond, families gathered around the table pretty much the way we did when I lived in Beirut. Of course, the meals and the order in which the dishes are served change from one country to another but the conviviality, generosity and hospitality are the same, which is not surprising, really. The legacy of the Ottomans as well as common Middle Eastern traditions have yielded similar dining habits throughout the region, not to mention the common ingredients.

Lemony Swiss Chard and Lentil Soup

’ADASS BIL-HAMOD

I don’t like soup on the whole, possibly because my mother had this maddening habit of offering to make it whenever any of us were ill. That said, I do like some soups, especially those that don’t remind me of the diced vegetable and chicken soup that my mother invariably prepared for the invalid in question. I especially like the following soup and always make it when chard comes into season. We often had it chilled for lunch with not much else other than bread, but you could serve it as a starter followed by a simple roast. The Lebanese tend to resist modernisation in the kitchen and many still crush garlic using a wooden pestle and mortar; some have now adopted a plastic version, but that is their only nod to modern times! I prefer to simplify my life and therefore use a metal garlic crusher, even if the pestle and mortar do a more thorough job, crushing the garlic into a creamy paste that dissolves into the soup, whereas the crusher just pulverises the garlic into tiny pieces that don’t emulsify with the liquid in quite the same way.

Serves 4–6

200g (7oz) large green lentils

400g (14oz) Swiss chard

Juice of 2 lemons or to taste

10 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

150ml (5fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Put the lentils in a bowl of water to soak while you prepare the Swiss chard, which you need to trim – the bottom of the stalks are often quite dirty and need to be cut off. Chop both leaves and stalks into thin strips about 1cm (½in) wide.

After they have soaked for about 30 minutes, drain the lentils and put in a large saucepan. Add 1.5 litres (2½ pints) of water and place over a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil then add the chard. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pot with a lid and let it bubble gently for 15 minutes or until the chard has wilted, at which stage mix the chard in with the lentils and cook, covered, for another 30–45 minutes or until the lentils are tender.

While the soup is cooking, prepare the seasoning by slowly incorporating the lemon juice into the crushed garlic, then gradually mixing in the olive oil. When the lentils and chard are done, stir the mixture into the soup. Season with a little salt and simmer, uncovered, for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve at room temperature.

Mini Dumplings and Meatballs Soup

MANTI CORBA

Most people in Turkey make their own manti (dumplings) but you can also buy them ready made. They will not be as delicate, nor will they be as small, which is the sign of the best manti, but they will be good and you will save considerable time preparing this satisfying soup that is often served at large family gatherings as the first of many courses. I was lucky enough to be invited one day to eat with the in-laws of my friend Nevin Halıcı. Her elder brother, Feyzi Bey, is married to a wonderful woman, Bahar, who comes from a family of fine cooks and whose sister Lale, who made the soup, is considered the best of them all. I have adapted her recipe below.

Serves 4

For the filling

125g (4½oz) minced lean lamb

1 very small onion or a shallot, finely chopped

2 tsp pepper paste

Sea salt

¼ tsp black pepper

For the meatballs

250g (9oz) minced lamb meat

¼ tsp ground allspice

For the dough

75g (2½oz) plain flour

Sea salt

For the soup

½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil

½ tbsp pepper paste

½ tbsp tomato paste

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

½ tbsp dried mint

200g (7oz) cooked chickpeas (½ jar)

Juice of ½ lemon

15g (¾oz) unsalted butter

Put all ingredients for the filling in a bowl. Mix well.

Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl. Gradually add 3 tablespoons water to make a rather stiff dough. Divide the dough into two and shape each into a ball. Roll the first piece into a very thin sheet, then cut into small squares about 3cm (1¼in) square for very small manti, or 6cm (2½in) square for larger ones. Put ¼ or ¾ teaspoon meat filling (depending on the size) in the middle of each square. Lift the corners of the square and stick together to shape a neat pouch. Repeat the process with the remaining dough until you have used all the dough and half the filling.

Mix the remaining filling with the meat. Add the ground allspice and salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Shape into the smallest balls you can make, like large marbles, in proportion to the size of your manti. Place on a tray. Cover loosely with cling film and refrigerate to firm them up.

Put the olive oil in a big pot and place over a medium heat. Add the pepper and tomato pastes, the black pepper and 1 teaspoon dried mint. Stir for a couple of minutes then add 750ml (1⅓ pints) water and salt to taste. Bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 10 minutes before adding the cooked chickpeas, the manti and the meatballs. Add the lemon juice and let bubble for 20 minutes. Check the water and add a little more if you feel the soup is too thick – the manti will absorb some of it. Just before serving, melt the butter in a pan and add the remaining dried mint. Pour all over the soup and serve immediately.

Mixed Pulses and Grains Soup

MAKHLUTA

Here is an incredibly nourishing soup that we often had at my grandmother’s during Lent. She served it with a platter of pickles and bread, of course, and to start with we would have tabbuleh or a cabbage salad. I often prepare it for lunch and make enough to last a few days. Sometimes I flavour the soup with cumin, other times with cinnamon. I also alternate between using seven-spice mixture and allspice, depending on how spicy I want the soup to be; allspice gives it a more subtle taste while the seven-spice mixture makes for a stronger flavour. You can eat it hot in winter or just warm in the summer. It is both versatile and satisfying, and perfect for both vegetarians and vegans!

Serves 4–6

50g (2oz) dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in cold water (enough to cover the beans by 2–3 fingers) and ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

75g (2½oz) dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water (enough to cover the chickpeas by 2–3 fingers) and ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

150g (5oz) brown lentils, soaked for 30 minutes in cold water (enough to cover the lentils by 2–3 fingers)

150ml (5fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

2 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped

30g (1oz) coarse burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

30g (1oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

2 tsp ground cinnamon or ground cumin

2 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

Rinse the soaked beans and chickpeas under cold water, then drain and put in a large saucepan. Drain the lentils and add to the chickpeas and beans. Add 2.5 litres (4⅓ pints) of water, cover the pan with a lid and place over a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and let the pot bubble gently, covered, for 1 hour or until the pulses are tender.

While the pulses are cooking, put the olive oil and chopped onion into a frying pan and place over a medium heat. Fry the onions, stirring occasionally, until golden.

Add the burghul and rice to the pulses when they are ready. Tip in the fried onions with their oil and season with the spices and a little salt. Let the soup simmer for 15 minutes, then taste and, if needed, adjust both seasoning and consistency to your liking. If the soup is too liquid, boil for a little longer; if too thick, add a little boiling water and simmer for a few more minutes. Serve hot or warm. You can also serve the soup at room temperature.

Green Beans in Tomato Sauce

LUBYEH BIL-ZEYT

The traditional way to serve this dish is by spreading the beans and their sauce on open pita bread: you tear off strips from the dry edges of the bread and use them to scoop up the beans. When you have finished eating the beans, you roll up the sauce-soaked bread to eat like a sandwich with wedges of raw onion. It was my favourite dish of all the ones my mother and grandmother cooked, and in a way it still is, especially when I want to have a taste of home. I always ask my mother to make it for me when I am in Lebanon. Lubyeh bil-zeyt was the first dish I ever cooked. I was 16 at the time and we lived in a small building that my father had bought. My room was on the same floor as the kitchen and dining room, with my parents’ on the floor above and my brother’s and sisters’ on the floor below. I was always the odd one in the family, insisting on having my own room and not wanting to share anything! It made me feel quite grown up to have a whole floor to myself, and one night my two older sisters and I decided to have a midnight feast. I made the green beans while my sisters prepared a chocolate cake. We ate the beans – I kept a little for my mother to taste the next day – and we used most of the chocolate cake in a cake fight that took forever to clear up. We didn’t want my parents to be angry at the mayhem we’d created while they were fast asleep. My mother never knew about the cake fight but she was very proud of my culinary efforts and impressed at how, on my first attempt, I’d managed to prepare the beans almost as well as she did!

Serves 4

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and finely chopped

6 garlic cloves, unpeeled

400g (14oz) Helda beans or fine green beans

Sea salt

1 × 400g can of Italian cherry tomatoes, drained

Put the olive oil, onion and garlic in a wide saucepan. Place over a medium heat and fry until the onion turns golden.

While the onion is cooking, top, tail and, if necessary, string the beans. Then cut them on the slant in 5–6cm (2–2½in) lengths; if you are using fine beans, simply top and tail them. Rinse under cold water, then add the beans to the onions. Sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt, and cook, covered with a lid, for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until they turn bright green and become glossy.

Add the tomatoes and season with a little salt. Mix well and cover the pan, letting the mixture bubble gently for about 20 minutes or until the sauce has thickened and the beans are done to your liking. I like to keep them slightly al dente; my mother cooks them until quite soft. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature, with pita bread.

Tabbuleh

Tabbuleh is basically a parsley and tomato salad with a fair amount of mint and a smattering of burghul and spring onions. However, despite the salad having gone global, it is still rare to see it made properly in the West, with a lot more herbs than burghul. Somehow it is not natural for Westerners to regard parsley as an essential ingredient when they are used to it as a garnish. When I was a child I loved perching on the cool marble worktops in my grandmother’s kitchen to help her bunch up the parsley, being very meticulous about aligning the sprigs where the leaves started, so that my grandmother could chop the parsley in neat slivers with a minimum of stalk attached. I also helped my mother in our kitchen, where we had the same worktops – most Lebanese kitchens at that time had white marble work surfaces. And today I chop the parsley exactly as my mother and grandmother did all those years ago. I hate to say it but there are no short cuts. Using a food processor to chop the herbs is not an option because it turns the herbs to mush. You just need to hone your knife skills, which you’ll also need for dicing the tomatoes, plus a very sharp knife to avoid crushing them. As a final tip, drain the diced tomatoes before adding them to the salad. This will keep your tabbuleh crisp and make it last longer.

Serves 4–6

30g (1oz) fine burghul

600g (1lb 5oz) firm ripe tomatoes, diced into small cubes

50g (2oz) spring onions (about ½ bunch), trimmed

400g (14oz) flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded

70g (2½oz) mint, leaves picked from the stalks

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

Juice of 1 lemon or to taste

150ml (5fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

4 Little Gem lettuces, quartered

Rinse the burghul in several changes of cold water, then drain well and put in a bowl. Stir with a fork every now and then to help fluff it up.

Put the diced tomatoes in a separate bowl and set aside while you thinly slice the spring onions and chop the herbs. A word of warning: do not chop the herbs with a mezzaluna – this will only bruise them. Instead, use a razor-sharp knife and gather as much as you can handle in a bunch and slice them very thin to end up with nice, crisp thin strips.

Drain the tomatoes of their juice and put in a large bowl. Add the spring onions and herbs and sprinkle the soaked burghul all over. Season with the cinnamon, allspice (or seven-spice mixture) and pepper, adding salt to taste. Add the lemon juice and olive oil and mix well. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve immediately with the quartered Little Gem lettuces.

Mushy Lentils and Rice

MUJADDARAH

Mujaddarah is a typical Lenten dish and a great vegetarian option for those who do not eat meat. My grandmother, who was more religious than my mother, often made it on a Friday, when Christians traditionally don’t eat meat. I loved watching her fill white soup plates with the smooth brown mixture, then line them up on the white marble counter to let them cool before she handed them out to each of us with a big bowl of lemony cabbage and tomato salad. Like lubyeh bil-zeyt, mujaddarah was one of my favourite family lunch dishes. It is also a typical dish to serve for lunch on spring-cleaning days, when it is put on to cook early in the morning and left to cool while the women of the house set about washing floors and beating the dust out of carpets. I was reminded of this the other day in London when my neighbour’s housekeeper started beating the dust out of his drawing-room cushions on the loading bay opposite mine. It was a sound from the past!

Mujaddarah is normally served at room temperature with a salad, raw onion and Arabic bread – all classic accompaniments. You can serve it in one big dish or, like my grandmother, in individual soup plates, where it sets like jelly with a very even top. And you can vary the recipe by puréeing the lentils before adding the onions and rice to make mujaddarah m’saffayeh (‘sieved’ mujaddarah). Simply drain the lentils, reserving the cooking water, then put them in a food processor and process until smooth. Return to the pan with the cooking water and finish as below.

Serves 4

400g (14oz) brown lentils, soaked for 30 minutes in cold water (enough to cover the lentils by 2–3 fingers)

100ml (3½fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

3 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped

50g (2oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

1 tsp ground cinnamon or ground cumin

1 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

Drain and rinse the lentils and put in a very large saucepan with 4 litres (7 pints) of water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium – give the lentils a good stir in case some have stuck to the bottom of the pan – and leave the pot to bubble gently for 1 hour or until the lentils are tender and the water has reduced by two-thirds.

In the meantime, put the olive oil in a frying pan, place over a medium heat and when the oil is hot, fry the sliced onions until they become soft and transparent. Using a slotted spoon, transfer half of the softened onions onto a plate and continue frying the rest until they caramelise and turn a rich dark brown, without actually letting them burn. Remove with the slotted spoon and place on several layers of kitchen paper, spreading them out in a thin layer so that they drain well and become crisp.

When the lentils are cooked, add the rice to the pan. Tip in the softened onions and their frying oil, and season with the spices and a little salt. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the rice is done and the mixture has thickened, but without letting it dry out. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Immediately pour the lentils and rice into a shallow serving bowl or into four deep plates, and allow to cool. Scatter the caramelised onions over the lentils before serving at room temperature.

Rice and Lentils

MUDARDARAH

The ingredients are more or less the same as for mujaddarah but the end result is very different – more like a risotto than a purée. I believe my mother learned to make this dish from my aunt Zahiyeh, with whom we spent our summers in Mashta el-Helou in the Syrian mountains. In those days, only members of the family lived there, but now it is an over-developed bustling summer resort where people flock from all over Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere to enjoy the cool mountain breezes, lush vegetation and beautiful views. As for my aunt, she is long gone but I still remember her when I make this dish, and many others besides. She often replaced the rice with burghul. If you decide to make mudardarah with burghul instead of rice, you need to use the coarse variety and reduce the quantity to 100g (3½oz) while increasing the quantity of lentils to 200g (7oz). The rest of the recipe remains the same.

Serves 4

150g (5oz) brown lentils, soaked for 30 minutes in cold water (enough to cover the lentils by 2–3 fingers)

150ml (5fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

3 medium-sized onions (about 300g/11oz total weight), peeled and thinly sliced

150g (5oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

Drain and rinse the lentils, then put in a large saucepan. Add 2 litres (3½ pints) of water and place over a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to medium. Give the lentils a good stir in case some have stuck to the bottom of the pan, cover with a lid and simmer for 30–45 minutes or until the lentils are nearly cooked.

While the lentils are cooking, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. (To check that the oil is hot, dip in an onion slice; if the oil bubbles around it, it is hot enough.) Fry the sliced onions until they caramelise and turn a rich brown, but without letting them burn. Remove three-quarters of the onions with a slotted spoon and leave to drain on a double layer of kitchen paper. Spread them thinly so that they drain well and become crispy.

Add the rice to the lentils, then season with the spices and a little salt and bring back to the boil. Reduce the heat, stir in the onions left in the frying pan, and their oil, then replace the lid on the saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, wrap the lid in a clean tea towel, put it back over the pan and leave to sit for 5 minutes.

Stir the lentils and rice before transferring to a serving dish. Scatter the crisped onions over the top before serving hot with a white cabbage salad. You can serve this dish tepid or even cold, in which case it’s best to garnish with the crisped onions at the last minute or they will go soft in the steam rising from the lentils.

Pumpkin Dip

MUTABBAL QARA’

This dip comes from my wonderful Palestinian singer friend Reem Kelani, with whom I cooked when I wanted to learn more about Palestinian food. Reem made the dip with pumpkin, although I prefer to use butternut squash because the colour is more intense and the texture creamier and less watery – she also does this now; we seem to have come to the same conclusion separately. If you are going to use pumpkin, however, be sure to buy the right kind and avoid the stringy type. Kabocha, a winter squash rather like butternut that is also known as Japanese pumpkin, is my favourite. Reem made a quick harissa to garnish the dip, using dried pepper flakes and a little tomato paste, but you can use regular harissa or, even better, Turkish or Aleppo pepper paste diluted with a little olive oil.

Serves 6

1kg (2lb 2oz) kabocha or butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into chunks

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

125ml (4½fl oz) tahini

Juice of 1 lemon or to taste

Sea salt

To garnish

Extra-virgin olive oil

Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

Pinch of ground cumin (optional)

Pepper paste (optional)

Steam the squash for about 40 minutes or until very soft. Leave it to drain in a colander until cold, pressing down on it, if necessary, to get rid of excess liquid. Put the cooked squash in a food processor. Add the garlic, tahini, lemon juice and a little salt, and process until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Transfer the dip to a shallow serving bowl. Make a groove inside the outside rim of the bowl and drizzle olive oil into the groove. Garnish with some chopped parsley and a pinch of cumin (if using). Spread a spoonful of pepper paste (if using) across the middle and serve with flatbread.

Cabbage and Tomato Salad

SALATET MALFUF WA BANADURAH

One of my favourite salads, this is often served with mujaddarah. You can make it just with cabbage, simply dressed with lemon juice, crushed garlic and olive oil, or you can add diced tomatoes, which my mother often did in summer when the tomatoes were at their best, and which I’ve done here, using cherry tomatoes for their more reliable flavour. I no longer add garlic to my dressing because I don’t want to impose my garlic breath on others, but I have left it in the recipe for those who prefer to use it. The best cabbage to use here is either pointed spring cabbage, which I buy organic, or the flat Middle Eastern variety, which is even more tender but which you can only find in Lebanese or Turkish shops. I often add a sprinkling of Aleppo pepper to the basic dressing because I like the slight heat it gives the salad.

Serves 4–6

1 pointed spring cabbage (about 500g/1lb 1oz), trimmed of any damaged outer leaves and finely shredded

Handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed (optional)

Juice of 1 lemon or to taste

50ml (2fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

Sea salt

½ tsp Aleppo pepper (optional)

Put the shredded cabbage and quartered tomatoes in a mixing bowl. Add the crushed garlic (if using), lemon juice and olive oil. Season with salt and Aleppo pepper (if using) to taste and toss the salad, being careful not to crush the tomatoes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve immediately.

Turkish Burghul Salad

KISSIR

Kissir is the Turkish version of tabbuleh, with burghul and tomatoes being the main ingredients rather than parsley and tomatoes, which form the basis of tabbuleh. I am convinced that kissir is at the root of how tabbuleh came to be misinterpreted in the West as a grain salad. A food writer must have confused the two recipes, giving a recipe for kissir as one for tabbuleh, and the mistake stuck until very recently when cookbook authors, chefs and ready-meal producers finally understood that tabbuleh is a herb salad and not a grain one. This is not to say that kissir is inferior to tabbuleh in any way; it is just as scrumptious and healthy, with an intriguing sweet and sour taste imparted by the pomegranate syrup dressing. You can use lemon juice instead, if you prefer, which will give the salad a more straightforward tart flavour. I have adapted this recipe from one in my friend Nevin Halıcı’s Turkish Cookbook, though there are many variations. If you want to make it with pepper paste, for instance, omit the Aleppo pepper and stir in 1–2 tablespoons pepper paste with the pomegranate syrup and oil before using to dress the salad.

Serves 4–6

200g (7oz) fine burghul

2 small Spanish onions (about 150g/5oz total weight), peeled and very finely chopped

5 medium-sized firm ripe tomatoes (about 500g/1lb 1oz total weight), deseeded and diced into 1cm (½in) cubes

½ small green bell or Marmara pepper, deseeded and finely diced

Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp Aleppo pepper

1½ tbsp pomegranate syrup or 3 tbsp lemon juice

Sea salt to taste

Put the burghul in a large mixing bowl and stir in 200ml (7fl oz) of boiling water a few spoonfuls at a time. Cover with a tea towel and leave to sit for 15 minutes.

When the time is up, stir the chopped onions into the burghul. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Taste, adjusting the seasoning if necessary, and serve immediately.

Stuffed Courgettes and Aubergines

MEHSHI KUSSA WA BATINJEN

Mehshi is possibly my all-time favourite dish for eating en famille – a homely yet sophisticated recipe that is as delicious as it is utterly satisfying. My grandmother often prepared it for us when we visited for lunch, and my mother always makes it for me when I return to Beirut. It is important to use the pale green courgettes sold in Middle Eastern shops. They are less watery than the regular dark green ones. It is also a good idea to select aubergines and courgettes that are more or less the same size for an elegant presentation; and of course choose ones that are very fresh. In Syria, some people cook the stuffed vegetables in a tomato sauce, but I prefer water, as in the recipe below, placing ripe tomatoes on the bottom of the pan to add both colour and flavour to the resulting sauce. And like my grandmother and mother, I also line the bottom of the pan with bones to enrich the cooking broth, although this is optional. An interesting variation on the courgettes is to use ’ajur, a variety of gourd that appears in the spring for a very fleeting season. Slightly bitter and with a striped skin, it is used by Syrian cooks to make this dish, stuffed with either rice or frikeh (‘burnt’ cracked wheat – see here). Perhaps one day an enterprising gardener will start planting ’ajur here, in which case I urge you use it as it is more interesting than courgettes with a more distinctive flavour.

Serves 8–10

1.2kg (2lb 10oz) medium-sized pale green courgettes (about 20 in total)

1kg (2lb 2oz) small aubergines (about 20 in total)

3–4 lamb bones (optional), rinsed under cold water

300g (11oz) ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced

1kg (2lb 2oz) plain yoghurt, to serve

For the stuffing

200g (7oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

300g (11oz) freshly minced lean lean lamb, from the shoulder or shanks (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb, or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

1 × 400g can of Italian chopped tomatoes

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

1 tsp finely ground black pepper

Fine sea salt

First prepare the courgettes and aubergines. Cut off and discard the stem end of each of the courgettes and shave off the brown skin at the bottom. Cut off and discard the stem ends of the aubergines and remove any husks capping the skin. Next fill a large bowl with cold water in which to plunge the vegetables once they’ve been cored.

Holding one courgette firmly in your hand with your fingers wrapped around it and the cut top uppermost, insert a narrow apple corer (or a special Lebanese corer, if you can get hold of one) into the cut top and push down as close to the edge as possible (2–3mm/⅛in from the skin) and keep pushing until the corer is halfway down the courgette. Take out, insert the corer again next to the first incision and repeat until you cut a rosette all the way down the courgette, but leaving the bottom intact. Twirl the corer inside the courgette to loosen the pulp, and pull out the first piece. Slide it off the corer into a bowl (saving the pulp to make the courgette omelettes), then insert again and, with a circular motion, scrape the sides and bottom to remove as much pulp as possible, leaving walls 2–3mm (⅛in) thick. Do this gently and carefully, gradually extracting the pulp, or else you will split the top or pierce the sides or bottom of the courgette.

Plunge the cored courgette in the bowl of cold water, filling the inside with water. Finish coring the courgettes and leave to soak while you core the aubergines the same way. (You can use the aubergine pulp for a variation on the courgette omelettes, remembering to sauté it longer as it won’t cook so quickly.) Place the cored aubergines in the bowl of water and leave to soak with the courgettes while you make the stuffing.

Put the rice in a mixing bowl and add the minced meat and chopped tomatoes. Season with the spices and a little salt, and mix together with your hands so that all the ingredients are well blended. Pinch off a little of the mixture and sear in a hot pan to taste, then adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Line the bottom of a very large saucepan, big enough to accommodate comfortably all the stuffed aubergines and courgettes half standing in one layer, with the bones (if using) and sliced tomatoes.

Drain and rinse the aubergines and courgettes under cold water. Take hold of a courgette or aubergine and hold it upright, cupping your hand around it. Scoop up a little of the stuffing with your other hand and gently push it inside the cored vegetable, using your finger to force it down. Every now and then, shake the vegetable in a downward motion to make sure the filling is well inside it (or push the filling in further with your little finger). Fill up to three-quarters, to leave enough room for the rice to expand, and place in the pan with the open end slightly raised – use the bones or tomato pulp to prop it up.

Continue filling and arranging both the aubergines and the courgettes, first lining them around the side of the pan, then filling up the inside, until you have used up both vegetables and stuffing. (If you have a little stuffing left over, cook it separately in double its volume of water and serve it on the side.)

Pour a little water in the empty stuffing bowl, swirl it around to extract the last bits of flavouring and pour over the vegetables to barely cover them. (The level of the water should come to about 2cm/¾in below the tops of the vegetables.) Add a little salt, bearing in mind that the stuffing is already seasoned. Cover the pan with a lid and place over a high heat. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to medium and let the stuffed vegetables bubble gently for 45 minutes or until it is done. Two-thirds of the way through, taste the broth and add more salt if necessary.

Once done, let the courgettes and aubergines sit, covered, for about 10 minutes before transferring to a serving dish. The best way to lift the soft, cooked vegetables intact is to carefully lever them out using your hand and a spoon. Cool the fingers of one hand in cold water and gently pull away one stuffed vegetable while sliding the spoon underneath it. Lift the vegetable, holding it against the spoon with your fingers, and place on a serving platter. Repeat with the remaining vegetables, arranging them on the plate. Ladle the sauce into a sauceboat and spoon the yoghurt into a bowl and serve with the hot stuffed vegetables, along with some pita bread.

Stuffed Swiss Chard

MEHSHI SILQ BIL-ZEYT

Traditionally this vegetarian stuffing includes chickpeas, which are soaked overnight, skinned and split. I don’t like their crunchy bite, finding it an unpleasant contrast to the melting rice and velvety leaves, and so I always make mine without chickpeas. I even made my mother stop using them! In the south of Lebanon, they leave out the lemon juice and olive oil and increase the amount of sumac to 3 tablespoons. I have never tried it that way, but I can’t imagine it to be an improvement, as this recipe, which is my mother’s, is perfect as it is.

Serves 4

1kg (2lb 2oz) Swiss chard (about 2 bunches, as sold in Middle Eastern shops)

1 large ripe tomato, sliced

For the stuffing

150g (5oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

300g (11oz) firm ripe tomatoes, diced into 5mm (½in) cubes

50g (2oz) spring onions (about ½ bunch), trimmed and finely chopped

100g (3½oz) flat-leaf parsley (about ½ bunch), most of the stalk discarded, chopped medium-fine

50g (2oz) mint (about ¼ bunch), leaves picked from the stalks and chopped medium-fine

2 tbsp ground sumac

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

Juice of 1 large lemon or to taste

150ml (5fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

First prepare the Swiss chard. Cut off the stalks and then cut each leaf into three pieces: first cut across the top third of the leaf, taking where the spine becomes thin and pliable as a dividing line, then slice off and remove the thick spine, leaving two more pieces of chard leaf. The cut pieces should make rolls 8–15cm (3–6in) long. Some leaves may be too small to cut in three, in which case simply cut them in two, again taking where the spine becomes thin as a dividing line. Slice off the back of the thick spine of the bottom parts without breaking the leaf and reserve the stems and stalks to line the bottom of the pan (or save the stalks, if in good condition, to make a salad).

Arrange the cut leaves, smooth side down, in neat layers inside a colander. Then run boiling water over them to soften them. Allow the leaves to drain while you line the bottom of a large saucepan – big enough to hold the stuffed leaves – with the tomato slices and stems and stalks from the chard leaves.

Next make the stuffing. Place the rice in a mixing bowl and add the diced tomatoes, spring onions, parsley and mint. Season with the sumac, cinnamon, allspice (or seven-spice mixture) and pepper, adding salt to taste. Add the lemon juice and olive oil and mix well – the stuffing should look like a salad. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

To stuff the chard leaves, first remove any damaged leaves from the colander and lay them over the stalks and tomato slices in the pan. Next take one of the undamaged leaves and lay it, smooth side down, on your work surface with the cut side nearest to you and the veins running away from you. Spread 1 teaspoon of stuffing (or more depending on the size of the leaf) in a long, thin and slightly raised line, the thickness of your little finger, along the side facing you, about 1cm (½in) from the edge (leaving a narrow strip) and from the end of the leaf on either side.

Fold the narrow strip of leaf over the stuffing and roll into a flat and loosely packed roll so that the rice has enough room to expand. Flatten the empty edges, then carefully lift the rolled leaf and lay over the tomatoes with the loose flap facing down. Continue stuffing, rolling and arranging the stuffed leaves side by side, forming one layer at a time, until you have used up the leaves and/or the stuffing. If you have any stuffing left over, put it in a small pan, cover with water and cook over a low heat to serve on the side. Use any leftover leaves to cover the rolled ones.

Pour enough water into the pan to just cover the stuffed leaves and add a little salt, bearing in mind that the stuffing is already seasoned. Cover the leaves with an overturned heatproof plate to stop them from unrolling during cooking. Then cover the pan with a lid and place over a high heat. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and let the pot bubble gently for 45 minutes or until the stuffing is done (see here). Two-thirds of the way through cooking, taste the broth to check the salt content, adding more if necessary.

When the 45 minutes are up, it is a good idea to taste a filled leaf to make sure the rice is done. If it is cooked through, turn off the heat and allow to cool before transferring the leaves delicately to a serving dish. I usually pick them up with my fingers to keep them intact; if you don’t like using your fingers, you could use a spoon instead – you may need two spoons for the longest leaves. Serve at room temperature.

Stuffed Vine Leaves on a Bed of Lamb Chops

MEHSHI WARAQ ’ENAB BIL-KASTALETTAH

Stuffed vine leaves are best when prepared with fresh leaves, but the season (late spring/early summer) is short. Frozen leaves are the next best option, although these are normally prepared at home and not available to buy. Failing that, you need to resort to preserved vine leaves. I prefer those that are vacuum packed because they are less salty than those preserved in brine. Often both are widely available, however, and can be bought all year round. Preserved leaves are bigger than fresh ones. When using those preserved in brine, be sparing with the salt. They remain quite salty even after rinsing under cold water. You need to allow a fair amount of time to prepare this dish, although this will depend largely on the speed at which you roll the vine leaves. A practised cook will stuff and roll the leaves in the recipe below in an hour, while a novice or less practised cook may take nearly twice as long. I belong to the latter camp not because I am a novice but mainly because I don’t prepare the dish that often. As a result, I am rather slow at rolling the leaves. Regardless, it is a wonderful party piece and well worth the effort.

Serves 4

8 thin lamb chops (about 600g/1lb 5oz total weight), most of the fatty bits trimmed

Sea salt

1 cinnamon stick

200g (7oz) medium-sized fresh or preserved vine leaves

Stock from cooking the lamb chops

Juice of 1 lemon or to taste

For the stuffing

125g (4½oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

200g (7oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the shoulder or neck (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

2 tbsp water

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Put the lamb chops in a saucepan, cover with water and place over a medium heat. As the water is about to boil, skim away any scum that rises to the surface, then add a little salt and the cinnamon. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat and let the stock bubble gently for 15 minutes. Lift the chops out onto a plate, strain and reserve the stock for later.

Meanwhile, make the stuffing. Place the rice in a mixing bowl, add the minced meat and water and season with the spices and a little salt. Mix with your hands to blend well. Pinch off a little mixture and sear in a hot pan to taste, then adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Choose a pan with straight sides and large enough to arrange the lamb chops in a tight even layer on the bottom. Put the vine leaves (fresh or preserved) in a colander and run boiling water over them. This will soften them and make them easier to roll. If you are using preserved leaves, rinse these beforehand in cold water, at least a couple of times, in order to get rid of some of the briny taste.

Take one vine leaf, cut and discard any stem and lay it flat on your work surface, smooth side down with the stem end nearest to you. Arrange ½–1½ teaspoons of stuffing, depending on the size of the leaf, in a thin raised line along the side of the leaf facing you. The line should be thinner than your little finger, set about 1.5cm (⅝in) away from the edge of the leaf and from the end of the leaf on either side. Fold each side over the rice, in a line that slightly tapers towards the bottom, then fold and tuck the top edges over the stuffing and roll from the stem end, neatly but loosely in order to leave enough space for the rice to expand during cooking.

Place the rolled leaf, loose edge down, over the lamb chops, on one side of the pan. Continue filling, rolling and arranging the vine leaves, side by side, lining the sides of the pan first and making one layer at a time, until you used all the leaves. If you have any leftover stuffing, put it in a small pan, add an equivalent amount of water and cook for 20 minutes to serve on the side.

Pour some, or all, of the reserved stock over the rolled leaves until they are barely immersed. If you do not have enough stock, add water. Add a little salt, bearing in mind the saltiness of the vine leaves, and shake the pan to swirl the water and dissolve the salt. Put an overturned heatproof plate over the leaves, to stop them from unrolling during cooking, cover the pan with a lid and place over a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and let the pot bubble gently for 50 minutes. Add the lemon juice and cook for another 10 minutes. It is a good idea to test one vine leaf, before you take them off the heat, to make sure the rice is properly cooked. Remove from the heat and leave to sit, covered, on a work surface for about 10 minutes.

The traditional way of serving this dish is to turn out the contents of the pan onto a serving platter as if it were a cake, and this is why you need a pan with straight sides. You’ll also need to wear heatproof gloves while performing this operation. First pour out the cooking juices into a bowl while holding back the stuffed vine leaves using the plate covering them. Remove the plate and place a big round, flat serving platter over the top of the pan. Hold it firmly against the pan with the flat of one hand. Slide the pan slowly over the edge of the work surface and put your other hand underneath it. Lift the pan off and quickly turn it upside down, then slide the platter onto your worktop and slowly lift the pan off to uncover a ‘cake’ of cooked stuffed vine leaves topped with the juicy lamb chops.

Alternatively, you can spoon the rolled leaves out, a few at a time, and arrange them in neat layers in a serving dish, putting the lamb chops on top or all around them. Baste with some of the cooking juice and serve immediately with a bowl of yoghurt.

Citrusy Petits Pois, Carrot and Lamb Stew

YAKHNET BAZELLA WA JAZAR

I was always delighted when my mother announced that we had yakhneh (stew) for lunch and in particular when it was this delectable one with its unusual taste of orange peel that is so well suited to the carrots and peas. (For more on the use of citrus peel in Levantine cooking.) I now make it quite differently from my mother, however, using Chantenay carrots which are small enough to keep whole for a prettier presentation. If I can’t find any, I simply cut larger carrots in half across then again in half lengthways. I also use frozen petits pois that I thaw in boiling water, drain and add to the stew at the very end to keep the vivid colour. To thicken the sauce and keep it tasting fresh, I use canned cherry tomatoes that I first drain thoroughly to minimise the cooking time. My mother, like everyone in Lebanon, uses fresh tomatoes. I would probably do the same if I lived in a country where the tomatoes are good. Sadly, this is not the case in England except possibly for two months of the year at the height of summer.

Serves 4–6

50g (2oz) unsalted butter

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 lamb shanks

2 × 400g cans of Italian cherry tomatoes, drained

Peel of 1 small unwaxed orange

6–8cm (2½–3in) strip of unwaxed lemon peel

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

300g (11oz) Chanteney or baby carrots

500g (1lb 1oz) frozen petits pois, defrosted (or fresh when in season)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté until golden, then place the meat in the pan and brown on all sides.

Add the tomatoes, orange and lemon peel, and season with the spices and a little salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the carrots and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes then discard the orange and lemon peel. By now the sauce should have thickened. If it hasn’t, uncover the pan and boil until it is quite thick. Add the petits pois and simmer for another 5 minutes or until the peas are done. Serve hot, either with good bread or with vermicelli rice.

Vermicelli Rice

REZZ BIL-SH’AYRIYEH

Here is a fun variation on regular rice in which toasted vermicelli is cooked with the rice. Vermicelli rice is normally served with meats cooked in a yoghurt or tahini sauce, but I like to serve it with the carrot and pea stew.

Serves 6

25g (1oz) unsalted butter

30g (1oz) dried vermicelli, broken into pieces about 2cm (¾in) long

200g (7oz) white short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

Sea salt

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the vermicelli and fry, stirring constantly, until the pasta is golden brown. Add the rice and mix well.

Pour in 400ml (14fl oz) of water and season with salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 15 minutes or until the rice is done and the water completely absorbed. Wrap the lid in a clean tea towel, replace over the pan and leave to sit for 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Kibbeh Pie

KIBBEH BIL-SANIYEH

Sadly, I have just lost my Lebanese butcher in London who prepared the mince for my kibbeh. Taken from a leg of lamb that is first boned, skinned and trimmed of fat, the meat is passed twice through the fine attachment of a meat grinder. It seems a crime to mince meat from such a luxurious joint, but minced meat is not considered a cheap option in the Levant. Quite the opposite. Some of the most celebratory dishes, including kibbeh, are made with it, and the meat for these dishes is always chosen from a very lean part, namely the top of the leg. The fillet is normally reserved for kebabs (see here) or to make bastirma (a type of spiced cured meat). There are dozens of different ways of preparing kibbeh; this is one of my favourites.

Serves 4–6

For the stuffing

60g (2oz) pine nuts

200g (7oz) lamb from the leg, boned, skinned and trimmed of fat

60g (2oz) unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing

5 medium-sized onions (about 500g/1lb 1oz total weight), peeled and finely chopped

1 tsp pomegranate syrup

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

For the kibbeh

500g (1lb 1oz) lamb from the leg, boned, skinned and trimmed of fat

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and quartered

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

200g (7oz) fine burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

Baking dish measuring 25cm (10in) in diameter and 5cm (2in) deep

To make the stuffing, first preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F), gas mark 7.

Spread the pine nuts on a non-stick baking sheet and toast in the oven for 5–7 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside. Leave the oven switched on for baking the pie, reducing the heat to 200°C (400°F), gas mark 6.

To prepare the meat for the stuffing and the kibbeh, first put the lamb through a fine mincer, or ask your butcher to do this for you, if you prefer. You can mince the meat in a blender but you have to be careful not to process it too much or it will become too smooth and not only lose texture but also be more difficult to shape, especially if you are making kibbeh balls. Once you have minced the lamb, drag a serrated knife through the meat to catch any sizeable bits of ligament. Wipe these off the blade and drag the knife through the meat a few more times until you stop picking up any further pieces.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Add the chopped onions and fry, stirring regularly, until lightly golden. Add 200g (7oz) of minced lamb and cook – mashing and stirring it with a wooden spoon or fork to break up the lumps – until it loses all traces of pink. Take off the heat and add the pomegranate syrup. Season with the spices and a little salt, then stir in the toasted pine nuts. Pinch off a little of the mixture and sear in a hot pan to taste, then adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Next make the kibbeh. Put the quartered onion in a blender and process until completely pulverised. Add the remaining 500g (1lb 1oz) of minced meat, along with the spices and a little salt, and blend until smooth. If your blender is not big enough to take the onion and meat in one go, process them in two equal-sized batches. Prepare a bowl of lightly salted cold water and have it to hand before transferring the meat to a mixing bowl.

Add the burghul to the meat and mix together with your hand, dipping it every now and then in the salted water to moisten your hand and add a little water to the kibbeh to soften it. Knead for about 3 minutes or until you have a smooth mixture. Pinch off a little of the kibbeh and sear in a hot pan to taste, adjusting the seasoning if necessary.

Grease the baking dish with a knob of butter and divide the kibbeh into two equal-sized pieces. Moisten your hands in the salted water and pinch off a handful of kibbeh from one piece. Flatten it between your palms, to a thickness of about 5mm (¼in), and place it on the bottom of the baking dish, along one side. Smooth it down evenly with your fingers. Pinch off another handful from the same piece, flatten and lay next to the first piece, slightly overlapping it. Dip your fingers in the water and smooth the pieces together until the joint disappears, to ensure that they don’t come apart during cooking. Continue the above process until you have finished the first half of kibbeh and covered the bottom of the dish. Then go over the whole layer with moistened fingers to even it out.

Spread the stuffing evenly over the kibbeh and then lay the other half of the kibbeh over the stuffing in the same way as above. You might find the top layer slightly more difficult to do as you will be laying it over the loose stuffing instead of the smooth surface of the baking dish, but you will soon get the hang of it.

Cut the pie into quarters, then with a sharp knife make shallow incisions to draw a geometric pattern – such as small lozenges, squares or thin stripes – across the top of each quarter. The decorative work is time consuming and can be omitted without affecting the taste, although the presentation will not be so attractive or as traditional. After you have finished decorating the pie, make a hole in the middle with your finger, going all the way through. Place a knob of butter over the hole and one on each quarter of the pie.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Let the pie sit for a few minutes before serving hot with a yoghurt and cucumber dip.

Kibbeh Balls in Yoghurt Sauce

KIBBEH BI-LABNIYEH

Kibbeh freezes very well. You could make the balls well ahead of time and freeze them, so that all you have to do on the day is to make the yoghurt sauce. Before serving, drop the just-thawed kibbeh balls into the hot yoghurt, where they will cook in minutes. You can also vary the sauce by replacing the coriander with fresh or dried mint, for which you will need 30g (1oz) of the fresh leaves, finely chopped, or 3 tablespoons of the dried herb. I very rarely use mint in my yoghurt sauce as I like the taste of coriander and find that it works with both the cooked yoghurt and the various meats or stuffed vegetables that are cooked in the sauce.

Serves 4–6

1 quantity of cooked kibbeh

1 quantity of cooked kibbeh stuffing

For the yoghurt sauce

25g (1oz) unsalted butter

100g (3½oz) fresh coriander (about ½ bunch), most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

7 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1kg (2lb 2oz) plain yoghurt (preferably goat’s)

1 medium-sized organic egg, whisked

Sea salt

Divide the kibbeh into 20 equal-sized pieces and roll them into balls, each the size of a large plum. Lightly moisten your hands in salted water (dipping them in the bowl of water used during the preparation of the kibbeh) and place a kibbeh ball in the palm of one hand. With the index finger of your other hand burrow a hole into the ball while rotating it – this makes the hollowing out easier and more even. You should produce a thin meat shell resembling a topless egg. Be careful not to pierce the bottom or sides of the kibbeh shell.

Put 1½–2 teaspoons of stuffing inside the kibbeh shell, gently pushing the stuffing in with a finger, then pinch the open edges together. Cupping your hands around the kibbeh ball, gently shape it into an ovoid ball with slightly pointed ends. Put the finished ball on a non-stick baking sheet. Continue making the balls until you have used up both kibbeh mixture and stuffing – if you have any stuffing left, serve it warm on the side or topped with fried eggs. Place the kibbeh balls in the fridge or freezer, if you have the space, to firm them up.

To make the yoghurt sauce, first melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped coriander and crushed garlic and sauté for 1 minute or until the mixture becomes aromatic, then remove from the heat, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside.

Put the yoghurt in a large heavy-based saucepan. Add the whisked egg and a little salt. Mix well and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly to help prevent the yoghurt from curdling. (Goat’s milk yoghurt, which I always use, is less likely to curdle, but it still does if you are not careful.) When the yoghurt has come to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes, still stirring.

Carefully slide the kibbeh balls into the sauce and simmer for 10–15 minutes, stirring very regularly to stop the yoghurt curdling. Add the coriander and garlic mixture and simmer for another minute or so. Serve hot with vermicelli rice or with good bread.

Lentils and Aubergines Cooked in Pomegranate Juice

RUMMANIYYAH

There is a wonderful moment in the autumn when you can buy ready-squeezed pomegranate juice in the markets in both Aleppo and Damascus that home cooks use to make this delicious vegetarian dish. I doubt you will find this in the West, however, so you will need to squeeze your own. You also need to make sure you are using sour pomegranates and not the sweet ones. If you do not have access to fresh pomegranate juice, use a combination of pomegranate syrup and lemon juice (3 tablespoons of pomegranate syrup to 80ml/3fl oz of lemon juice) and dilute in 1 cup of water.

Serves 5–6

200g (7oz) brown lentils, soaked for 30 minutes in cold water (enough to cover the lentils by 2–3 fingers)

Seeds from 3 sour pomegranates, plus extra to garnish

50g (2oz) unbleached plain flour

1 tbsp fennel seeds

2 whole dried red chillis or 2 tsp dried chilli flakes

5 garlic cloves, peeled

Sea salt

2 medium-sized onions, peeled, one finely chopped and the other thinly sliced

120ml (4½fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil

500g (1lb 1oz) aubergines, cut into 2.5cm (1in) cubes

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp tahini

Drain the lentils and boil in 500ml (18fl oz) of water for approximately 15 minutes. Strain, reserving the water, and set aside.

Put the pomegranate seeds in a food processor. Add 2 tablespoons of water and process until the seeds are completely pulverised. Strain and mix with the flour until you have a smooth mixture.

Crush the fennel seeds and dried chilli with a pestle and mortar, then add the garlic and 1 teaspoon of salt and pound until you have a smooth paste.

In a large saucepan, sauté the chopped onions in half the olive oil until golden. Add the aubergines and continue to sauté until soft and wilted. This will take about 10 minutes.

Tip in the lentils and their water and let the mixture bubble gently for about 7 minutes. Then slowly add the pomegranate juice and flour mixture while stirring continuously. Add the crushed spices and cumin and keep stirring until thickened. Next add the tahini and continue stirring for another 5 minutes. Take off the heat, pour into a large serving bowl or 5–6 individual ones and leave to cool.

In a separate pan, fry the sliced onion in the remaining olive oil until golden. Garnish the serving bowl (or individual bowls) with the fried onions. Scatter pomegranate seeds all over and serve at room temperature with Arabic bread and olives.

Kibbeh Balls with Quince in a Fresh Pomegranate Sauce

KIBBEH SFARJALIYEH

Syrians love cooking with fresh pomegranate juice when pomegranates are in season. There are market stalls that sell only pomegranates, both the sour type, which is called leffan, and the sweet type, which is eaten as it is or juiced and sold in the juice bars. Syrians are keen on fresh produce and rarely prepare dishes outside of the season in which particular fruits or vegetables are at their best. Some home cooks freeze fresh pomegranate juice to use out of season, but quince doesn’t freeze very well, which makes this kibbeh dish one that is special for autumn, when quinces are in season. More like a soup than a stew, it has a very delicate sweet and sour flavour.

Serves 4–6

250g (9oz) lamb, taken from the shanks

5 cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick

5 peppercorns

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and studded with 4 cloves

Sea salt

For the sauce

Seeds from 1kg (2lb 2oz) sour pomegranates

50g (2oz) golden caster sugar

1.5kg (3lb 5oz) quinces, cored, peeled and cut into wedges

For the kibbeh balls

100g (3½oz) cold unsalted butter, diced into 2cm (¾in) cubes

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

½ quantity of uncooked kibbeh

First make the sauce. Put the pomegranate seeds in a food processor with 2 tablespoons water and process until the seeds are completely pulverised. Next put the sugar and 125ml (4½fl oz) of water in a large saucepan. Add the wedges of quince and place over a medium heat.

Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 15 minutes, shaking the pan every now and then to coat the quince in the syrup. Add the pomegranate juice, lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for another hour or until the quinces are tender. By then they should have turned a beautiful pink colour.

Meanwhile, make the kibbeh balls. Put the butter cubes in a mixing bowl, add the cinnamon and allspice and gently toss to evenly coat the butter with the spices. Prepare a bowl of lightly salted cold water and have it to hand.

Divide the ½ quantity of kibbeh into 12 pieces and roll them into balls, each the size of a walnut. Lightly moisten your hands in the salted water and place one kibbeh ball in the palm of one hand. With the index finger of your other hand burrow a hole into the ball while rotating it – this makes the hollowing out easier and more even – taking care not to pierce the bottom or sides of the kibbeh shell.

Place a cube of seasoned butter into the kibbeh shell and seal the meat around the butter. Gently roll the kibbeh to create a round ball a little smaller than a ping-pong ball. Finish making the kibbeh balls and refrigerate to firm them up.

Put the lamb in another saucepan and cover with water. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil. As the water is coming to the boil, skim any scum that rises to the surface. Add the spices, onion and some salt and simmer, covered with a lid, for 1 hour. Strain the meat, onion and spices, reserving the cooking broth, and discard the spices and onion.

Place the cooked lamb in a clean pan, add the strained stock with the cooked quinces and their juice, and place over a medium-low heat. When the cooking broth is simmering, carefully drop in the kibbeh balls and taste the broth, adding more sugar if it is too sour. Adjust the salt, if needed, and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve very hot in soup plates, making sure each diner gets equal amounts of lamb, quince and kibbeh.

Chicken Fatteh

FATTET DJEJ

Fatta means ‘to break into pieces’ in Arabic, and fatteh (also known as fatta depending on the country or the accent) describes a composite dish made up of pieces of toasted pita topped with meat, vegetables and/or pulses, covered with yoghurt and garnished with toasted pine nuts. The dish is a typical street breakfast in Lebanon, although it is eaten at other times of day too, and there are many variations depending on the time it is served, the region or the family. Here I give a version of the dish using chicken, but you can easily make it with lamb instead. Replace the chicken with a shoulder of lamb, skinned and trimmed of fat, or 1kg (2lb 2oz) neck fillets, and prepare in the same way, bearing in mind that you may have to cook the lamb for a little longer. The traditional method is to use dried chickpeas that you soak and then cook with the meat, but I like to simplify things if I can and I now use ready-cooked chickpeas that are preserved in brine in a jar without any preservatives. All I do is rinse them well before adding them to the stock and cooked meat to heat them through. In that time, they absorb the taste of the stock and you won’t know the difference between chickpeas you’ve cooked from scratch and ready-cooked ones.

Serves 4

1 medium-sized chicken (about 1.5kg/3lb 5oz)

1 cinnamon stick

Coarse sea salt

1 large round pita bread, opened at the seams

100g (3½oz) pine nuts

1 × 675g jar of chickpeas preserved in salted water (475g/16½oz drained weight), rinsed under cold water and drained

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

Handful of mint leaves, crushed with the garlic (optional)

1kg (2lb 2oz) plain yoghurt

Put the chicken in a large saucepan, add 1.25 litres (2¼ pints) of water and place over a medium heat. As the water comes to the boil, skim any scum that rises to the surface. Once it has come to the boil, reduce the heat, then add the cinnamon stick and 1 tablespoon of salt and cover the pan with a lid. Let the stock bubble gently for 45 minutes or until the chicken is done.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F), gas mark 7.

Toast the bread in the oven until golden brown, then remove and allow to cool. Spread the pine nuts on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven at the same time for 5–7 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove the chicken from the saucepan and strain the stock into a clean pan. Then skin the chicken and take the meat off the bone before cutting it into bite-sized pieces. Add these to the stock together with the chickpeas and place over a low heat.

Mix the crushed garlic (and mint, if using) into the yoghurt and add salt to taste.

Break the toasted bread into bite-sized pieces and spread over the bottom of a serving dish. Spread the hot chicken pieces and chickpeas over the bread. (You can at this stage add a little stock, although I prefer not to because I like the bread to stay crisp.) Cover with the yoghurt and garnish with the toasted pine nuts, then serve immediately.

Lentil Kibbeh

MERCIMEKLI KÖFTE

Here is a very simple vegetarian version of kibbeh that is claimed by both Turks and Armenians, which is not surprising given that south-eastern Turkey had a sizeable Armenian community until they were deported and subsequently killed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dish remains, though, and you will also find it in Lebanon and Syria among the Armenian community in those countries, where it is very much part of the culinary repertoire. I was given the following recipe by a wonderful Turkish home cook, Belgin, who does cookery demonstrations for groups that I bring to her house. We start in her kitchen before moving to her dining room for a lavish and exquisite lunch. I always ask her to start with this köfte (the term the Turks use for kibbeh, while the Lebanese use the word kafta to describe a particular mixture of minced meat, herbs and onions that is either grilled, stewed or baked or even eaten raw). I love snacking on the patties, eating them with my hand while waiting for the other dishes to be ready.

Serves 4–6

200g (7oz) red lentils, rinsed under cold water and drained

175g (6oz) fine burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

80ml (3fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

2 medium-sized onions (about 200g/7oz total weight), peeled and finely chopped

100g (3½oz) pepper paste

100g (3½oz) organic tomato paste

1 tsp ground cumin

Sea salt

To serve

Little Gem lettuce leaves

Few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

Put the lentils in a saucepan, add 500ml (18fl oz) of water and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until the lentils are mushy and the water has almost evaporated. Add the burghul and mix in well, then cover the pan with a lid and let it sit while you fry the onion.

Put the olive oil and chopped onions in a frying pan and cook over a medium heat, stirring regularly, until the onions are golden and very soft. Add the pepper paste and tomato paste and mix in well.

Transfer the lentils and burghul mixture to a mixing bowl. Add the onion mixture and mix to a smooth paste with your hand (wearing a glove as the mixture may dye your hand red). Add the cumin and a little salt and mix again, adding a little water if the mixture is too stiff. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Then, just as you would for the kibbeh balls, pinch off pieces to make medium-sized oval patties, which you indent by gently squeezing the patties with your fingers.

Arrange the lettuce leaves on a round platter and place a piece of kibbeh on each. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.

Raw Kibbeh with a Spicy Burghul and Herb Topping

KIBBEH FRAKEH

All the time I lived in Lebanon, I never knew about many regional dishes eaten elsewhere that are very different from the ones we ate at home or in restaurants. Every now and then my mother would mention a dish and say that she didn’t know how to make it because it was not from where her mother’s family came from, the Chouf Mountains. She hardly ever cooked outside of her region’s repertoire, which was basically classic mountain cookery. It wasn’t until I met Nayla Audi, one of my great friends in Lebanon whose family comes from the south, that I started to find out more about southern specialities, including this very particular way of preparing raw kibbeh. But even in the south, people have their own family or village variation on frakeh (basically the same as kibbeh in its raw state, but the burghul is mixed with wild herbs and spices), as I later found out from another friend, Hammoude Jouni, whose family is from Saida, whereas Nayla’s father’s family is from Kfar Rumman, very close to the Israeli border. The house is a lovely old square stone structure built around an inner courtyard, and next to it is the family cemetery where all her relatives are buried. Seeing the cemetery reminded me of my aunt Zahiyeh’s mausoleum for her husband which was behind her house. Sunday lunches in Kfar Rumman are wonderful affairs with the whole family tucking into a mezze of different types of kibbeh, including frakeh. For the following recipe, you can also spread the mixture of burghul, herbs and spices over the raw meat without pre-mixing. The taste is different and meatier, which I prefer.

Serves 4–6

1 small onion, peeled and quartered

50g (2oz) flat-leaf parsley, most of the stalk discarded

30g (1oz) marjoram, leaves picked from the stalks

Small handful of basil leaves, plus extra to serve

2 dried rosebuds

Zest of ½ unwaxed lemon

Zest of ½ unwaxed orange

100g (3½oz) fine burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

Sea salt

Finely ground black pepper

300g (11oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the top part of the leg (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

Extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

Put the onion, herbs and rosebuds in a food processor and process until very fine. Transfer to a large bowl, then add the lemon and orange zest and burghul. Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well.

Pour some cold water into a medium-sized bowl, add a little salt and stir to dissolve. You will use this for dipping your hands in as you combine the meat with the burghul and herb mixture or tahwicheh (which means ‘foraging’ in Arabic).

Add the minced meat to the herb mixture and mix well, using your hand and dipping it every now and then in the bowl of salted water. Divide the meat into 16 pieces and form each into a torpedo-shaped patty with your hands. Squeeze each patty slightly to make indentations in the mixture with your fingers.

Arrange the patties in a circle on a serving platter, piling the basil leaves in the middle of the plate. Serve immediately with olive oil for those who would like to drizzle some over their kibbeh.

Lamb Cooked in its Mother’s Milk

LABAN EMMOH

I love the name of this dish, which in Arabic means the milk of its mother, although it is not entirely accurate because the lamb is actually cooked in yoghurt and not in milk! I am guessing that the name derives from the traditional practice of making yoghurt from sheep’s milk before using it in a number of dishes where meat or vegetables or even eggs are cooked in yoghurt, or served topped with yoghurt. This group of dishes is a real favourite of mine, especially in summer when you can serve them just warm, which is perfect on hot days.

Serves 4

4 lamb shanks

Coarse sea salt

400g (14oz) baby onions (about 16 in total), peeled

For the yoghurt sauce

25g (1oz) unsalted butter

100g (3½oz) fresh coriander (about ½ bunch), most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

7 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1kg (2lb 2oz) plain yoghurt (preferably goat’s)

1 medium-sized organic egg, whisked

Put the shanks in a large saucepan, add 1.25 litres (2¼ pints) of water and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, skimming away any scum that rises to the surface, and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Reduce the heat, cover the pan and let it bubble gently for 45 minutes. Add the peeled onions and simmer for another 15 minutes or until both onions and meat are done.

Meanwhile, make the yoghurt sauce. First melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped coriander and crushed garlic and sauté for 1 minute or until the mixture becomes aromatic, then remove from the heat, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside.

Put the yoghurt in a large heavy-based saucepan. Add the whisked egg and a little salt. Mix well and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly to help prevent the yoghurt from curdling. When the yoghurt has come to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes, still stirring.

Use tongs to remove the shanks from the broth and slide them into the yoghurt. Then use a slotted spoon to transfer the onions from the broth into the yoghurt sauce. Add the sautéd coriander and garlic and simmer, stirring very regularly to stop the yoghurt from curdling, for another 10 minutes. Serve hot with vermicelli rice or good bread.

Stuffed Breast of Lamb

DOLE’ MEHSHI

My mother always changed the menu for our Christmas meals. One year she would make turkey, using the same stuffing as the one below, which also goes well with chicken. Another year she would make kibbeh bil-saniyeh and another year she would make breast of lamb. This is the bit of meat that covers the ribs and as a result is quite fatty. It tends to be large (if the lamb is quite old, which is how it is sold in Lebanon) and triangular in shape, and there are two ways of stuffing it. One is to fold it in half and sew it all around the edges, leaving a large enough opening through which you insert the rice, meat and nut stuffing before sewing the opening shut; the other method (the one given here) is to make a pocket between the skin and the meat that you then stuff with the rice mixture and sew shut. The presentation is probably more appealing if you keep the breast as it is and don’t fold it. In either case, stuffed breast is a great variation on the more classic stuffed turkey. You could also use a neck fillet or a boned shoulder. Both will have a lot more meat on them.

Serves 8

1 side of a breast of lamb (ask your butcher to slice off the rib bones and to make the pocket between the skin and the meat)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 cinnamon stick

1 bay leaf

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and studded with 8 cloves

For the stuffing

100g (3½oz) pine nuts

100g (3½oz) blanched almond halves

300g (11oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the shoulder or shanks (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

1 tsp allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

400g (14oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

First make the stuffing. Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F), gas mark 7.

Spread the pine nuts and almonds on separate baking sheets and toast in the oven, 5–6 minutes for the pine nuts and 7–8 minutes for the almonds, until they turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Put the mince in a non-stick saucepan large enough for cooking the rice, and sauté over a medium heat until the meat has lost all traces of pink. Add the spices and some salt, then add the toasted nuts (reserving a little for garnish) and the rice. Mix well, then pour in 650ml (just over 1 pint) of water and a little more salt. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Start sewing one side of the opening of the pocket in the lamb breast and stuff the pocket with the rice mixture. You want to use about one-third of the rice, reserving the rest for serving with the lamb. Spread the rice evenly inside the pocket, align the edges of the breast and sew the opening shut.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Delicately transfer the stuffed breast to the pan and brown on both sides. Pour in 1.5 litres (2½ pints) of water and add the cinnamon stick, bay leaf and the clove-studded onion. Bring to the boil, skimming away any scum that rises to the surface, then reduce the heat, cover the pan with a lid and let it bubble gently for about 1½ hours.

Remove the breast from the pan and let it rest for 5 minutes before serving. Alternatively, if you want the meat to have a more golden colour, you can transfer it to a baking dish and bake it in the oven (preheated to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6) for 10–15 minutes or until golden. Leave to rest for 5 minutes once cooked.

Meanwhile, add a little broth from cooking the lamb to the remaining rice mixture, and cook over a low heat until the rice is completely done and very hot. Slice the breast into thick slices, being careful not to break up the rice stuffing, and serve with the remaining rice on the side.

Dumplings in Yoghurt Sauce

SHISH BARAK

There is a recipe for this dish, also known as shushbarak, in a fifteenth-century Syrian cookery book called Kitab al-Tibakhah (The Book of Cookery), written by Ibn al-Mabrad or Ibn al-Mubarrad, a legal scholar from Damascus. The author gives these instructions: ‘You take minced meat and stuff it in dough rolled out like cut tutmaj [unfilled dumplings cooked in yoghurt]. It is cooked in water until done. Then take [it] off the fire and put yoghurt, garlic and mint in it.’ This is more like the Turkish or Armenian manti, in which the dumplings are either poached or baked before being dressed with the yoghurt sauce, whereas in the Lebanese version they are cooked in the yoghurt. Shish barak is a rather elaborate dish and my mother always reserved it for special occasions. That said, it freezes very well and you can make the dumplings ahead of time and keep them in the freezer until you are ready to serve, at which point all you will have left to do is to prepare the yoghurt sauce.

Serves 4–6

For the dough

175g (6oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting

Sea salt

For the stuffing

1 small onion, peeled and very finely chopped

Pinch of ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

⅛ tsp finely ground black pepper

150g (5oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the shoulder or shanks (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

For the yoghurt sauce

25g (1oz) unsalted butter

100g (3½oz) fresh coriander (about ½ bunch), most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

7 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1kg (2lb 2oz) plain yoghurt (preferably goat’s)

1 medium-sized organic egg, whisked

5cm (2in) diameter pastry cutter

Tip the flour into a mixing bowl, add 100ml (3½fl oz) of water and a pinch of salt and knead with your hands for 3 minutes or until you have a rather firm dough. Invert the bowl over the dough and let it rest for 15 minutes. Then knead the dough for another 3 minutes or until it is smooth and malleable. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and let it rest for another 15 minutes.

Next make the stuffing. Put the chopped onion in another mixing bowl, sprinkle with the spices and a little salt and firmly rub the seasonings in with your fingers to soften the onion. Add the minced meat and mix with your hands until the meat and onion are well blended. Pinch off a little of the mixture and sear in a hot pan to taste, then adjust the seasoning if necessary. Cover the mixture in the bowl with a clean tea towel.

Sprinkle a large freezerproof platter with a little flour and have it ready to put the dumplings on. Divide the dough into two, rolling each piece into a ball and putting one back under the damp tea towel. Flatten the other slightly, dip both surfaces in flour, shake the excess off and roll out into a large circle, about 2mm (1⁄16in) thick. Using the pastry cutter, cut the dough into as many circles as you can, starting from the very edge and working your way inwards. Knead the excess dough into a small ball and slip under the damp tea towel to let it rest.

Turn the circles over, then take one and lay it across the fingers of one hand. Place ¼ teaspoon of stuffing in the middle. Fold the dough over the filling, aligning the edges together to make a half circle. With your free thumb and index finger pinch the edges tightly together into a thin flat wedge. Fold the dumpling until the two ends meet. Pinch them well together and set the curled dumpling on the flour-dusted platter, with the fat part facing down – the finished dumpling should look like a mini tortellini but with a narrower uncurled rim. Continue making the dumplings and arranging them neatly on the platter until you have used up both dough – including the remaining balls of dough under the tea towel – and filling.

Put the dumplings in the freezer while you make the yoghurt sauce. This will firm them up and stop them becoming misshapen as you drop them into the sauce. If you are freezing them for later use, wait until they have frozen before covering them with cling film or slipping them into a freezer bag to avoid squashing them.

To make the yoghurt sauce, melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped coriander and crushed garlic and sauté for 1 minute or until the mixture becomes aromatic, then remove from the heat, cover with a clean tea towel and set aside.

Put the yoghurt in a large heavy-based saucepan. Add the whisked egg and a little salt. Mix well and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly to help prevent the yoghurt from curdling. When the yoghurt has come to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes, still stirring.

Take the dumplings out of the freezer and carefully drop them into the simmering yoghurt. Bring back to a simmer and stir in the sautéd coriander and garlic. Simmer for another 5 minutes or until the dumplings are cooked. Serve hot with vermicelli rice or good bread.

Aubergine and Rice Cake

MAQLUBEH

You need to cook maqlubeh in a pan with straight sides that are not too high. This will allow you to turn it over (maqlubeh means ‘turned over’ in Arabic) into a beautiful cake. You’ll also need to select aubergines that are all the same size to give uniform slices for an attractive presentation. If you feel daunted by the turning-over trick, simply bake the maqlubeh in a baking dish – ideally Pyrex so you can see the layers – in the oven (preheated to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4) for 45 minutes and serve straight from the dish. The presentation will not be as spectacular but the taste will be the same. The Palestinians have an interesting variation on this dish using carrots – sliced lengthwise then blanched to soften them – instead of the fried aubergines.

Serves 4

4 large aubergines (about 1kg/2lb 2oz total weight)

Sea salt

200g (7oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

60g (2oz) pine nuts

60g (2oz) blanched almond halves

50g (2oz) butter

500g (1lb 1oz) freshly minced lean lamb, from the shoulder or shanks (either ask your butcher to mince the lamb or do it yourself using the fine attachment on a meat grinder)

1 tsp ground cinnamon, plus extra for seasoning

1 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

Finely ground black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Straight-sided saucepan about 22cm (8½in) in diameter and 20cm (8in) deep

Cut off and discard the stem ends of the aubergines. Peel away most of the skin, lengthways, to create a striped effect with thin strips of skin left on the vegetable. Next cut the aubergines lengthways in thin slices about 1cm (½in) thick. Arrange these in layers in a colander, sprinkling each layer with a little salt to let them sweat; in principle this should make them absorb less oil when you fry them.

Put the rice in a bowl and pour 300ml (½ pint) of boiling water over it. Add ½ teaspoon of salt and let it soak while you prepare the remaining ingredients. The rice will absorb some of the water and swell, and so will need less cooking water, which will help the cake stay firm.

Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F), gas mark 7.

Spread the pine nuts and almonds on separate baking sheets and toast in the oven, 5–6 minutes for the pine nuts and 7–8 minutes for the almonds, until they turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the minced meat, stirring and mashing it with a spoon or fork to break the lumps, until the meat has lost all traces of pink. Take off the heat, season with the spices, ¼ teaspoon of black pepper and a little salt and mix in most of the toasted nuts, holding back a tablespoonful for garnishing. Pinch off a little of the mixture and sear in a hot pan to taste, then adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Rinse the aubergine slices under cold water and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Pour enough vegetable oil into a large, deep-sided frying pan to deep-fry the aubergines, and place over a medium heat. To test whether the oil is hot enough, dip the end of an aubergine slice into it; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Fry the aubergines until golden on both sides, then remove with a slotted spoon and leave to drain on several layers of kitchen paper.

Spread half of the minced meat in an even layer on the bottom of the 22cm (8½in) diameter saucepan. Arrange two-thirds of the aubergines in a layer over the meat, right up to the sides of the pan, using the best slices for the sides of the dish as these are the ones that will show. Drain the rice, spread it over the aubergines, then cover with the remaining meat and finish off with a layer of aubergines.

Season 350ml (12fl oz) of boiling water with a little cinnamon, salt and pepper – bearing in mind that the meat is already seasoned. Gently pour the seasoned water into the pan, cover with a tight-fitting lid and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15–20 minutes or until the rice is cooked and the water fully absorbed.

Take off the heat, wrap the lid of the pan in a clean tea towel, put it back on the pan and let it sit like this for about 10 minutes.

The traditional way of serving this dish is by turning it over onto a round flat serving platter as if it were a cake. First place the plate upside down on top of the pan. Wearing heatproof gloves, hold the plate down firmly with one hand and, with the other, slide the pan slowly over the edge of the work surface. Put your free hand underneath the pan, pick it up and quickly turn it upside down. Slide the platter back onto your worktop and slowly lift the pan off to uncover the rice and aubergine cake. Sprinkle the reserved nuts on top and serve immediately with some plain yoghurt.

Courgette Omelettes

’EJJET KUSSA

These omelettes are a perfect example of the ingeniousness of Lebanese cooks, who never waste any food. My mother always made them when she prepared stuffed courgettes so that she didn’t waste the pulp, but I often make them with whole courgettes because I really like them this way and it is simpler to prepare courgettes from scratch than to spend hours coring and stuffing them! You can vary this dish by using aubergine pulp from the recipe, or simply make parsley omelettes (cejjet baqdunes) by leaving out both courgette pulp and garlic. Follow the instructions below for either variation, the only difference being that you need to sauté the aubergine pulp in a little vegetable oil to soften it before adding to the eggs.

Serves 4

Pulp from 400g (14oz) pale green courgettes (about 175g/6oz pulp), very finely chopped, or 200g (7oz) pale green courgettes, coarsely grated

Sea salt

3 medium-sized organic eggs

50g (2oz) spring onions (about ½ bunch), trimmed and thinly sliced

50g (2oz) flat-leaf parsley (about ¼ bunch), most of the stalk discarded, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 tbsp unbleached plain flour

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

⅛ tsp finely ground black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Sprinkle the chopped courgette pulp (or the grated courgettes) with a teaspoon of salt and rub firmly with your hands until soft and mushy. Squeeze between the palm of your hands to extract the excess liquid and set aside.

Break the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat well. Add the chopped spring onions and parsley and the crushed garlic. Mix well then add the courgette pulp (or grated courgettes), flour, spices and 2 tablespoons of water. Season with salt and mix well.

Put enough vegetable oil in a large frying pan to shallow-fry the omelettes and place over a medium heat. When the oil is hot, drop in 2 tablespoons of the egg mixture and spread into a medium-thin circle, about 8cm (3in) in diameter. You should be able to make 5–6 small omelettes per batch. Fry until golden on both sides, then remove with a slotted spatula and leave to drain on several layers of kitchen paper.

Continue making the omelettes – you might have to top up the oil between every other batch – until you finish the egg mixture. You should end up with 14 small omelettes. Alternatively, you can make four large omelettes by using a quarter of the egg mixture for each one. Serve tepid or at room temperature.

Fried Eggs with Sumac

BEYD MEQLI BIL-SUMMAQ

You can vary these very simple, lemony fried eggs by replacing the sumac with pomegranate syrup. Use 1 tablespoon of pomegranate syrup diluted with 2 tablespoons of water and pour over the eggs just before they are cooked. The taste will change from lemony to an intriguing sweet-savoury flavour. We often had fried eggs for breakfast at the weekend, but I tend to have them for lunch these days.

Serves 4

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

8 medium-sized organic eggs

1 tbsp ground sumac

Sea salt

100g (3½oz) spring onions (about 1 bunch), trimmed, to serve

Put the olive oil in a frying pan large enough to take all eight eggs and place over a medium heat.

Break each egg into a shallow bowl, making sure it stays whole, and when the oil is hot, carefully slide the eggs into the pan. This way the eggs go in all at once and will cook evenly. Gently shake the pan back and forth to spread the eggs evenly across the bottom.

Sprinkle the sumac all over. Season with salt, bearing in mind that some brands of sumac may have been mixed with salt to bulk it up. Cook until the whites are done and the yolks are still soft. Serve immediately with the trimmed spring onions and good bread.

Burghul with Chickpeas and Pork Belly

BURGHUL BI-DFINEH

Burghul bi-dfineh is a classic dish that seems to have gone out of fashion, which is a shame as it is both healthy and delicious. My mother used to make it with both pork meat and skin, which we loved. The closest I have come to her version here is by using pork belly. I also make it with lamb shanks, with equally good results. You can use frikeh (‘burnt’ cracked wheat – see here) instead of burghul for a more interesting smoky flavour. If you do, I suggest you make the dish with lamb, however. Follow the instructions as below, bearing in mind that you may need to use a little more water with frikeh.

Serves 4

50g (2oz) unsalted butter

2–3 pork or lamb bones (optional)

500g (1lb 1oz) pork belly, cut into 4 chunks, or 4 lamb shanks

1 medium-sized onion, peeled and finely chopped

125g (4½oz) dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water (enough to cover the chickpeas by 2–3 fingers) and ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 cinnamon sticks

250g (9oz) coarse burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice or Lebanese seven-spice mixture

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Sea salt

450g (1lb) plain yoghurt, to serve

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat and brown the bones (if using), then transfer to a large plate. Add the pork (or lamb) to the pan and brown on all sides. Remove to the same plate as the bones, then add the chopped onion to the pan, plus a little more butter if needed, and sauté until the onion is soft and transparent. Return both meat and bones to the pan.

Drain and rinse the chickpeas and add to the pan. Stir for a few minutes until they are well coated in butter, then add 1.5 litres (2½ pints) of water and the cinnamon sticks. Cover the pan with a lid, then bring to the boil, reduce the heat and let the mixture bubble gently for 1 hour or until the chickpeas and meat are tender.

Remove and discard both bones (if using) and cinnamon sticks. Add the burghul and season with the spices and some salt. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 25 minutes or until the burghul is done and the liquid completely absorbed. Wrap the lid in a clean tea towel, then replace over the pan and leave to sit for a few minutes. Serve hot with the yoghurt.

Sumac Chicken Wraps

MUSSAKHKHAN

Here is another recipe from Reem Kelani, my Palestinian singer friend (see also here), which I have adapted by reducing the generous quantities so typical of Palestinian cooking. Mussakhkhan (‘heated’ in Arabic) is probably the best known of all traditional Palestinian dishes. It was found throughout Palestine before 1948, with some regional variations. In Nazareth and the Galilee it is called muhammar (meaning ‘baked’, ‘grilled’ or ‘reddened’). You can prepare it as below, to serve as a starter or snack, or you can make the dough and prepare it more like a pizza to serve as a main course. The recipe here is far simpler and quicker to prepare than if you were to make the main course version. The taste remains the same, with the sumac imparting a lovely tart flavour and giving the meat a pretty reddish colour. As for the Palestinian spice blend, it is made with allspice, cinnamon, dried garlic, cardamom and cloves. The proportions vary depending on who is making the mix. You cannot buy it here but you can buy the Lebanese seven-spice mixture, which is close enough. If not, simply use allspice – its complex flavour with hints of cinnamon and cloves goes well with this dish.

Serves 8

500g (1lb 1oz) skinned and boneless chicken, cut into long strips

35g (1¼oz) pine nuts

4 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped

125ml (4½fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing and brushing

1 tbsp ground sumac, plus extra for seasoning

Bouquet garni made with 1 drop of mastic, 2 cardamom pods, 2 cloves, ½ tsp coriander seeds, 3 black peppercorns, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 1 dried chilli, 1 bay leaf and a cinnamon stick, all wrapped in cheesecloth

1 large shraak or marqûq bread (see ‘bread’)

For the marinade

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

½ tbsp Palestinian mixed spices or Lebanese seven-spice mixture or allspice

Sea salt

Mix the ingredients for the marinade in a large mixing bowl, seasoning with salt. Add the chicken strips to the marinade, turning them in the mixture so that they are well coated in it, and leave to sit for 2 hours.

When the chicken has nearly finished marinating, preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F), gas mark 7.

Spread the pine nuts on a non-stick baking sheet and toast in the oven for 5–7 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside. Leave the oven switched on, with the heat lowered to 180°C (350°F), gas mark 4.

Put the chopped onions and olive oil in a large frying pan and place over a medium heat. Cook for a few minutes until they start softening, then lower the heat to medium-low. Add the sumac and continue cooking the onions, over a low heat and adding a little water if necessary, until they are completely done but not browned. Add the toasted pine nuts and cook for a few more minutes.

Sauté the chicken in a separate pan, then add 250ml (9fl oz) of boiling water and the bouquet garni and cook, covered with a lid, until the water evaporates and the chicken is done.

Spread out the bread and cut into long pieces, each wide enough to wrap around the chicken and onions in the shape of a long cigar. Then spread a little onion on each slice of bread, and top with chicken. Sprinkle with a little more sumac and roll the bread tightly around the filling. Place in a lightly oiled baking dish and brush the roll with a little olive oil. Finish making the remaining wraps, arranging them in the baking dish and brushing them with oil as you go.

Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes and serve hot or warm.

Yellow Cake

SFUF

Most Levantine meals end with fruit rather than a sweet dessert. And sweets are the reserve of professional sweet-makers, bought to serve with coffee when we have guests or family visiting, or simply as an indulgence between meals. A few are made at home, however, such as this cake which my mother often baked when we were children. In fact, most Lebanese families would serve this on a regular basis. It is one of the rare sweets that is almost exclusively made at home; when made by a sweet-maker, it is never as good. The classic recipe calls for only turmeric, but I love saffron and have adapted my mother’s recipe to produce a rather luxurious version using this spice.

Serves 4

1 tbsp tahini

250g (9oz) plain white flour

125g (4½oz) fine semolina

½ tsp baking powder

75g (2½oz) unsalted butter (or 75ml (2½fl oz) extra virgin olive oil)

250g (9oz) golden caster sugar

good pinch of saffron threads

½ tsp turmeric

30g (1oz) pine nuts (or blanched almonds)

Baking disk measuring 21cm (8in) square and about 4cm (1½in) deep

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350°F), gas mark 4 and grease a deep baking dish 21cm square with the tahini.

Mix the flour, semolina and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add the butter (or olive oil) and rub the fat in with your fingers until it is well absorbed. Put the sugar in another mixing bowl. Add 150ml (5fl oz) water and the saffron and turmeric to the sugar and stir until the sugar is completely diluted. Let the saffron/turmeric infuse for 15 minutes then add the sweetened water to the flour and semolina mixture and blend well together. Pour the mixture into the baking dish, scatter the pine nuts (or almonds) on top and bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until the cake has risen and it is cooked through.

Remove the cake from the oven and let cool before cutting it into medium squares or diamonds. Serve at room temperature. The cakes will keep for a week if stored in a sealed container and kept in a cool place.

Sticky Sponge Cake

NAMMURAH

This cake is as much a family sweet as it is a street one, the latter being more common in Egypt, where it is known as bassbuma, than elsewhere in the Levant. It may shock you initially to see the cake swimming in sugar syrup, but don’t let this worry you. You can rest assured that the sponge will soak up all the syrup. All you need worry about is the number of calories you will be consuming with each slice. Not quite 1,000 calories a bite, but not far off!

Makes 24 squares

425g (15oz) semolina

75g (2½oz) golden caster sugar

100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, softened

300g (11oz) plain yoghurt

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp tahini for greasing

50g (2oz) blanched almonds

For the sugar syrup

525g (1lb 2oz) golden caster sugar

1½ tsp lemon juice

1½ tbsp rose water

1½ tbsp orange blossom water

Baking dish measuring 20 × 30cm (8 × 12in) and about 4cm (1½in) deep

Put the semolina, sugar and softened butter in a mixing bowl and work together with your hands until well blended. Add the yoghurt and bicarbonate of soda and mix well together until you have a firm batter.

Grease the baking dish with the tahini, then add the batter and spread it evenly over the dish. Flatten it gently with the back of a spoon, to form an even layer, then cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for 3 hours.

Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the sugar and 225ml (8fl oz) of water in a saucepan. Add the lemon juice and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, occasionally stirring the mixture. Boil for 3 minutes then add the rose and orange blossom water and boil for a few seconds more. Take off the heat and set aside to cool.

Thirty minutes before the batter is ready, preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.

Divide the uncooked cake into 24 × 5cm (2in) squares and press one blanched almond in the middle of each square. Bake in the oven for 20–30 minutes or until golden.

Remove from the oven and pour the cooled syrup all over the cake. Let it rest for 30 minutes at least so that it soaks up the syrup. Serve at room temperature. You may find the traditional amount of syrup excessive. If so, reduce the quantity to your liking, bearing in mind that the sponge needs time to absorb the syrup and that although it may look at first as if the cake is swimming in syrup, it will eventually be fully absorbed.

Rice Pudding

REZZ BIL-HALIB

Another typical family sweet, rice pudding is comfort food par excellence – soft and creamy, and lusciously sweet and fragrant with the addition of rose and orange blossom water. I prefer to use good-quality short-grain rice to regular pudding rice, which contains broken-up pieces, but it is your choice. You can decorate with slivered pistachios, as here, or give it a Turkish twist by adding saffron. It will be all the more luxurious.

Serves 4–6

200g (7oz) short-grain white rice (bomba, Calasparra or Egyptian), rinsed under cold water and drained

300ml (½ pint) full-cream organic milk

100g (3½oz) golden caster sugar

1 tbsp rose water

1 tbsp orange blossom water

Slivered pistachios, to garnish

Put the rice in a saucepan with 500ml (18fl oz) of water. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook the rice for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Once the rice has absorbed all the water, pour in the milk. Bring to the boil then add the sugar and simmer for another 20 minutes. At this stage you will need to stir the rice very regularly so that it doesn’t stick or dry up. You want the texture to be like that of a custard, so add a little milk if you think it is becoming too dry.

When the rice has become very soft and very creamy, remove the pan from the heat. Add the rose and orange blossom water, mixing them in quickly, then pour into one big serving dish or 4–6 individual ones. Allow to cool before placing in the fridge. Serve chilled or at room temperature, garnished with slivered pistachios.

Sweet Walnut Coil

’AMMTO ZAHIYEH’S BORMA

This is my Syrian aunt’s recipe for homemade baklava, which she formed into one big coil – hence the name borma, meaning ‘rolled’ or ‘turned’ in Arabic. She used to make her own dough, but to save time I substitute with a good-quality filo pastry, usually a Greek or Turkish brand.

Serves 6

275g (10oz) golden caster sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1½ tbsp rose water

1½ tbsp orange blossom water

200g (7oz) shelled walnuts, finely ground

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

75g (2½oz) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing

6 sheets of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (measuring 31 × 46cm/12½ × 18in)

Baking dish measuring 25cm (10in) in diameter

Put 175g (6oz) of the sugar in a saucepan, add 75ml (2½fl oz) of water and place the pan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and let the syrup bubble for 3 minutes, then add the lemon juice and ½ tablespoon each of the rose and orange blossom water. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

Mix the ground walnuts with the remaining sugar, rose and orange blossom water and the cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425°F), gas mark 7, and brush the baking dish with a little melted butter. If using a non-stick dish or pan, you won’t need to grease it.

Spread one sheet of filo on your work surface with the long side facing you – keep the other sheets covered so that they don’t dry up and become brittle. Brush with some of the melted butter. Arrange one-sixth of the walnut filling in a thin line lengthways across the sheet, about 1cm (½in) from the edge nearest to you. Fold the pastry over the walnuts and roll tightly into a thin sausage. Coil up the roll and place in the centre of the baking dish or tin. Make the remaining walnut rolls and coil them around the initial coil until the dish is completely covered.

Brush the top with melted butter and bake in the oven for 20–25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, pour the sugar syrup all over the borma and allow to cool. Serve at room temperature.

Halva

Where I grew up in Lebanon and Syria, halva meant a very sweet crumbly confection made with sesame seeds, or at least this is what I thought at the time. It wasn’t until many years later when I saw it being made in the souks of Aleppo that I realised it was made with tahini, sugar syrup and a foamy substance extracted from the roots of soapwort. I never ate any other kind of halva, nor knew it existed, until I started travelling. In Kuwait I tasted halva made with toasted flour, butter and sugar. It was dry and brittle and not particularly delicious, whereas the one I tried in Turkey, made with the same ingredients plus pine nuts, was smooth and luxurious. The same with Iranian halva, which has saffron and cardamom added to it. There are other variations, including one made with semolina, but it is the Turkish and Iranian versions that I like best. In both countries it is served at big family meals where there might be guests, as well as on special occasions such as a birth or death.

Serves 6

Turkish halva

150g (5oz) unsalted butter

150g (5oz) unbleached plain flour

50g (2oz) pine nuts

225g (8oz) golden caster sugar

Put the butter in a large deep-sided frying pan and place over a low heat. When the butter has melted, add the flour and pine nuts and toast, stirring all the time, until both flour and nuts are golden.

Put the sugar in a saucepan and add 400ml (14fl oz) of water. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Let it bubble for 2–3 minutes, then add to the flour and nut mixture over a low heat. Quickly stir the syrup into the flour and continue stirring until you have a smooth well-blended mixture.

Cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit for 15 minutes. Then either make small quenelles with the mixture, using two spoons, or spread over a serving platter, shaping the halva the way you prefer.

Iranian halva

150g (5oz) unbleached plain flour

150g (5oz) unsalted butter

Vegetable oil for greasing

1 tbsp slivered pistachios, to garnish

For the sugar syrup

150g (5oz) golden caster sugar

½ tsp ground cardamom

Good pinch of saffron threads, soaked in 3 tbsp rose water

Cooking ring measuring 20cm (8in) in diameter, and tiny fluted or star-shaped pastry cutters (optional)

First make the sugar syrup. Put the sugar, cardamom and 125ml (4½fl oz) of water in a small saucepan and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring regularly, then lower the heat and simmer for 3–4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the saffron-infused rose water, then set aside.

Put the flour in a large deep-sided frying pan and place over a medium-low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes or until the flour is golden. Add the butter and continue stirring until the flour has turned a darker colour, being careful not to let it burn. This should take about another 10 minutes.

Slowly add the sugar syrup, again stirring all the time to avoid making lumps. Stir over the heat for a few more minutes until there are no white streaks and the mixture has formed into a smooth mass. Put a shallow ring on a lightly oiled marble or glass chopping board or a tray. Spread the mixture inside the ring and leave to cool.

Cut the cooled mixture into tiny pieces using the smallest-sized fluted or star-shaped pastry cutters you have, or simply cut into wedges. You can also make individual quenelles using two spoons, like they do in Turkey. Garnish with the slivered pistachios and serve at room temperature.

Spiced Turkish Wheat Pudding

KESME BULAMACı

This interesting and relatively healthy dish is a speciality of south-eastern Turkey. It is often eaten as a sweet snack rather than a dessert.

Serves 4–6

50g (2oz) fine burghul, rinsed under cold water and drained

150ml (5fl oz) pekmez

1 small cinnamon stick, 1 whole dried allspice berry and 5 cloves tied in cheesecloth

1 tsp cornflour

1 tsp unbleached plain flour

2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (to toast them yourself)

2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Put the burghul in a medium-sized saucepan and add 500ml (18fl oz) of water. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, then lower the heat to medium-low and leave to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Add the pekmez and sachet of spices, cover the pan with a lid and simmer over a low heat for 15 minutes, stirring regularly.

While the burghul is simmering, mix the cornflour and flour with 3 tablespoons of water. When the 15 minutes are up, add the flour mixture to the pan, together with the toasted sesame seeds and walnuts. Cook, uncovered, for another 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the pudding has thickened. Take off the heat and remove the sachet of spices. Pour into one big serving bowl or individual bowls and serve at room temperature.

Turkish Coffee

There isn’t a family meal in Lebanon that doesn’t finish with a cup of Turkish coffee. In fact, I can’t think of an occasion that doesn’t call for it. People make Turkish coffee to offer visitors or simply to have when they want to sit and relax. It was lucky we didn’t get many visitors when I was young because I was the one tasked with grinding the coffee beans whenever my mother made coffee. In those days we ground the beans for every brew and we did it in a beautiful narrow cylindrical brass grinder that had geometric patterns etched all over. I carefully poured the roasted beans into the top part of the grinder, then fitted the domed lid on top and slotted the articulated handle (which folded to fit inside the grinder when it was not in use) onto the grinding pole. I then slipped the bottom part, into which the ground coffee would fall, beneath the top one and started turning the handle to grind the coffee beans. It wasn’t much of an exertion but I resented being the one who was always asked to do it rather than my sisters. I would protest, but only a little, before complying, mainly because I loved the grinder. I then stood by the stove to watch my mother ‘cook’ the coffee – Turkish coffee is boiled several times before it is served. I never lost the feeling of suspense, wondering whether my mother would be able to stop the coffee from boiling over or whether she’d be quick enough to remove the rakweh (the pot in which we made the coffee) in time before it spilled.

We always asked our guests how they liked their coffee. Sadah meant without sugar, wassat medium-sweet, and helou (like our name) sweet. In the recipe below, I give measurements for medium-sweet coffee. Simply adjust the amount of sugar if you want it less or more sweet and of course, omit the sugar altogether if you want it without any. Ideally you should use a rakweh, which is like a mini kettle with a long handle and wider at the bottom than the top, with a protruding flat spout. If you don’t have one, just use a small saucepan, preferably with a lip to make pouring the coffee easier.

Serves 4

4 heaped tsp finely ground coffee

2 tsp golden granulated sugar

Rakweh, or small saucepan with a lip, and four demitasses

Put the coffee and sugar in the rakweh or saucepan with 250ml (9fl oz) of water and place over a medium heat. Stir the coffee and sugar into the water and bring to the boil. As the coffee is coming to the boil, it will foam up like milk. Immediately remove from the heat and allow it to settle down. Return to the heat and repeat a couple more times if you want your Turkish coffee to be foamy on top, or repeat several times if you prefer it smooth. Pour into the coffee cups and serve immediately.