This herb-laden, golde -baked rice dish hails from Persia and comes to us via Peckham thanks to Sally Butcher’s Veggiestan cookbook , now republished in a special 10th anniversary edition. The crisp, saffron-tinted surface of the rice, known as tahdik, is enormously prized by Persians and definitely the star of the show. The generous volumes ... Read more »
This 10 year anniversary green and gold clad edition of Veggiestan by Sally Butcher comes at an opportune time: vegan and vegetarian cookbooks almost outnumber the omnivore cookbooks publishers are currently offering, as climate consciousness encourages us all to reduce our meat intake and increase the production quality (and hence cost) of the meat we ... Read more »
Courgettes (zucchini) baked in a cheese sauce (kousa bi gebna) may sound like a very basic dish and yet this recipe was the surprise winner of all the food we cooked when reviewing Ghillie Başan’s The Lebanese Cookbook. Described as a typical family dish, it consists of sliced courgettes baked in cheesy egg mixture reminiscent ... Read more »
Palestinian Upside-Down Rice, Lamb & Aubergine (Maklubeh Bajinjan) is an impressive dish to serve – a turned-out-from-the-dish dome of rice and lamb wrapped in slices of silky aubergine – and a delight of really simple flavours that adds up to far more than the sum of its ingredients. The recipe is from Ghillie Başan’s The ... Read more »
This delicious Date Cake with Caramel Sauce is the invention of cookbook author Anas Atassi’s mother, and is one of the recipes in his book, Sumac. Soft, sticky dried dates provide both body and sweetness in the cake and reduce the volume of refined sugar needed. The result is a cake that is light and ... Read more »
Today’s recipe is Syrian Fish with Sumac Tahini Sauce (Tajen samak), another delicious treat from Sumac by Anas Atassi. It’s the first time I’ve tasted tahini with white fish but now I’ve tried it, I love it. That sumac pairs so well is less of a surprise, its citrusy notes amplify the lemon used in the ... Read more »
This Syrian Lamb Koftas in Tahini Sauce is the first recipe we made from Sumac by Anas Atassi and it was a real winner. Straightforward to make, it’s a deliciously different way to use minced lamb and the results are wonderful. The meat mixture – herby with parsley and fragrant with all spice, ground coriander, ... Read more »
“With this book, I hope to build a bridge between Syrian culture and the rest of the world with food as common denominator. But even more, I hope that Sumac will present a positive image of my country, in spite of all of the unfortunate events now taking place in Syria.” So says author Anas ... Read more »
Today we are sharing another recipe from Meze: Snacks, Small Plates and Street Food from the Middle East, by Sally Butcher, one that hails from her mother-in-law Afi. A minced lamb casing is wrapped around two different fillings, one being whole eggs, carrots and herbs, and the other a mix of spinach, walnuts and dried ... Read more »
This aubergine-wrapped chicken hails from Turkey, featuring two ingredients beloved of Turkish cooks – yoghurt and aubergine. Chicken is marinaded in a punchy combination of yoghurt, garlic, lemon, turmeric and Aleppo pepper, wrapped in silky sleeves of aubergine and cheese, covered with tomato passata and baked. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Have you already read our ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]