An authentic, indulgent collection of dessert recipes from across the Middle East, from one of the region's most loved home cooks Whether you start your day with something sweet, finish it with something sweet, or make sure sweets are within reach all day long, you'll find serious inspiration in the pages of Salma Hage's latest cookbook for home cooks. The Middle East's wide range of cultures, ingredients, and influences informs the array of dishes she includes - spiced cookies, cream-filled pancakes, aromatic pastries, and delicious cakes - with recipes that are easy to follow and celebrate simple-to-source spices and taste combinations.
The award-winning author of Mediterranean Street Food introduces readers to the sweet side of Middle Eastern cuisine with these seventy classic desserts. The seductive flavors of the Middle East have won over food lovers around the world, but the sweets of the region have remained largely unknown to Western palates—until now. Sweet Middle East, by doyenne of Middle Eastern cooking Anissa Helou, presents seventy classic desserts fragrant with spices, honey, dates, and nuts, and steeped in tradition. From Egyptian Bread Pudding to Turkish Fritters and Crispy Algerian “Crepes,” this is a delectable tour of Middle Eastern treats you won’t want to miss.
2019 James Beard Award Nominee SUQAR (which means 'sugar' in Arabic) shares the secrets of more than 100 sweet treats inspired by Middle Eastern flavors – ranging from puddings and pastries, to ice creams, cookies, cakes, confectionary, fruity desserts and drinks. The traditional time to eat sweets in the Middle East is not after meals (when fruit is served) but at breakfast, with coffee in between meals or on religious holidays and special occasions. The repertoire of these dishes is vast and varied. In SUQAR, acclaimed chef Greg Malouf and writing partner Lucy Malouf share the best and most delectable sweet treats from the region (alongside some personal favorites and tried-and-tested creations from Greg's restaurant kitchens). The recipes merge the spices, flavors and scents of Greg's childhood with the influence of Greg's training in the West to create dishes in Greg's signature Modern Middle Eastern style. The book's ten chapters cover: Fruit; Dairy; Frozen; Cakes; Cookies; Pastries; Doughnuts, Fritters & Pancakes; Halvas & Confectionery; Preserves; and Drinks. Accompanied by beautiful photography and illustrations, SUQAR is a journey through the sweets of the Middle East.
Pomegranates and pistachios. Floral waters and cinnamon. Bulgur wheat, lentils, and succulent lamb. These lush flavors of Maureen Abood's childhood, growing up as a Lebanese-American in Michigan, inspired Maureen to launch her award-winning blog, Rose Water & Orange Blossoms. Here she revisits the recipes she was reared on, exploring her heritage through its most-beloved foods and chronicling her riffs on traditional cuisine. Her colorful culinary guides, from grandparents to parents, cousins, and aunts, come alive in her stories like the heady aromas of the dishes passed from their hands to hers. Taking an ingredient-focused approach that makes the most of every season's bounty, Maureen presents more than 100 irresistible recipes that will delight readers with their evocative flavors: Spiced Lamb Kofta Burgers, Avocado Tabbouleh in Little Gems, and Pomegranate Rose Sorbet. Weaved throughout are the stories of Maureen's Lebanese-American upbringing, the path that led her to culinary school and to launch her blog, and life in Harbor Springs, her lakeside Michigan town.
Joumana Accad, creator of the blog TasteOfBeirut.com, is a native Lebanese, a trained pastry chef, and professional caterer. In her debut cookbook, The Taste of Beirut, she shares her heritage through exquisite food and anecdotes, teaching anyone from newbies to foodies how to master traditional Lebanese cuisine. With over 150 recipes inspired by her Teta (grandmother) in their family's kitchen, Accad captures the healthful and fabulous flavors of the Middle East and makes them completely accessible to home cooks. Each recipe features step-by-step instructions, Accad's warm teaching style and breathtaking color photographs that will make mouths water. Divided into sections including Breads, Breakfast, and Sandwiches; Soups; Mezze Delights; Main Dishes (Stews, Kibbeh, Stuffed Vegetables, and Rice Dishes); plus Pastries and Drinks, here is just a taste of the recipes featured: Spinach turnovers (Fatayer bel-sabanegh) Meat pies (Sfeeha) Kibbeh tartare (vegan) Red pepper and walnut dip (Muhammara) Lebanese couscous (Moghrabieh) Red lentils and rice purée (Mujaddara Safra) Eggplant casserole with tomato, meat and yogurt sauce topping (Fattet al-makdoos) Meat loaf with potato slices (Kafta bel-saniyeh) Zucchini or cauliflower fritters Wings, Lebanese-style Fattoush salad Beet hummus (Mama dallou'a) Zaatar and tapénade bread Wheat berry and milk pudding (Amhiyet bel-haleeb) Sesame and pistachio cookies (Barazek) Lebanese semolina cheesecake (Knafeh) Baklava in a speedy ten-minute version! While The Taste of Beirut brings to life the rich, complex, and delicious flavors of the Middle East, each recipe is refreshingly easy to make. The author's passionate, conversational style will make readers feel like they have a friend from Lebanon right in their kitchen, teaching them everything from cooking techniques to how to stock a kitchen with the best ingredients. Even more than a fabulous Lebanese cookbook, The Taste of Beirut is a proud celebration of people, culture, and cuisine.
"An Edible Mosaic nudges the basic cook into the world of Middle Eastern cooking with simple, approachable recipes that jump off the page and into your kitchen. Faith turns creative combinations of real food and spices into beautiful dishes packed with flavor and nutrition. --Kath Younger, KatEats.com blog"
Features 125 recipes for traditional Lebanese favorites, from mezze, street-food skewers and sandwiches, and staples like Labneh and Ajin (Lebanese yogurt and bread) to fresh seasonal salads, pickles and vegetables, main dishes and sweets, and rich desserts laced with Atar (rose water syrup) --
Growing up in an Arab American household, rich traditional Arabic dishes were central to Blanche's family's life. However she noticed that previous generations of her family did not document these heirloom recipes on paper, but passed the cooking techniques only by word of mouth. So Blanche began a mission of cultural preservation, taking down the cooking methods and exact ingredients of these hundreds of year old recipes. She launched a popular YouTube cooking show called ''Feast in the Middle East'' to not only share these recipes with her family, but with the world. Some of these dishes are classical favorites, like smoky Syrian Muhammara dip with walnuts, pomegranate molasses and roasted peppers, ''Warak Enab, '' or rice and lamb rolled into tender grape leaves and cooked in a tomato broth, or Lebanese semolina custard scented with rose water called ''Layali Lubnan'' or ''Lebanese Nights''. Other dishes, like Musakhan, come from small and obscure villages like Ein Erik in the Palestinian West Bank. Musakhan is a sumac spiced chicken roasted on bread and smothered with caramelized onions and toasted pine nuts. Ancient recipes like chewy semolina date ring cookies called Ma'moul commemorate both Easter and Ramadan, while an over 1000 year old cinnamon spiced bulgur wheat porridge called Burbarra celebrates the Feast of Santa Barbara in the Arab Levant, Malta, and even Eastern Europe. While many of these dishes used to take hours to make, Blanche modernized these recipes to adapt to today's western palate and busy lifestyles. Readers will be able to recreate street foods like Chicken Shawarma and crispy Felafel in their own kitchens using easy techniques and familiar ingredients. Fusion dishes like Baklava Granola with pistachios and cardamom, Middle Eastern Nachos or ''Machos'' with pita chips and cucumber yogurt sauce, and a Lemon Cheesecake made with creamy labneh cheese adapt middle eastern spices and ingredients to western tastes. Today the ''Feast in the Middle East'' YouTube series has brought together a global cooking community in an unexpected and beautiful way. Now viewers are making these recipes in the United States, Canada, India, Australia, Spain, Korea and beyond. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Blanche Araj Shaheen is the YouTube personality and host of the popular cooking show, Feast in the Middle East. Prior to her foray into food, she was a television host and reporter in both entertainment and news. She reported and hosted programs for PBS, G4 Television, and Link Media's ''Mosaic World News of the Middle East.'' She also became the first Arab American entertainment reporter, as a contributor for the ABC live show called ''View From the Bay.'' In 2010 Blanche made the switch to hosting her own YouTube cooking show, sharing heirloom recipes preserved by her mother and grandmother. With her journalism background, she decided to document the recipes in this cookbook, and Feast in the Middle East was born. She gives the historical relevance of many signature dishes, and shares personal stories from her own family traditions and trips to the Middle East. Aside from her ongoing cooking series on YouTube, Blanche's Feast In the Middle East has been featured on Virgin America Airlines AUTHOR HOME: Los Altos, C
PRESERVING FOOD AND CULTURE THE LEBANESE WAY -- The very best memories connecting us to time and place are often stimulated by the tastes and smells of our childhood. Freshly-baked bread, hot from the oven, sweet homemade jam dribbling down our chins, or the burst of flavor in each dried grape—these memories bring a smile to our faces even as they call to mind the people who made them possible. Do you remember working alongside your grandmother as she lovingly preserved garden-fresh foods to set back for the winter? You watched Jiddo (grandfather) patiently prepare his arak, but could you reproduce his efforts from memory? Are you lucky enough that they kept written records of recipes gleaned from family history and years of experience? If so, count yourself among the very fortunate minority. The reality for many of us is that we no longer enjoy such a strong connection to our culinary roots. As much as we might wish the contrary, the beauty and simplicity of home-preserved pantry items, the mouneh, taken for granted during our childhood, often seems a lifetime away. In Barbara Abdeni Massaad’s book, Mouneh: Preserving Foods for the Lebanese Pantry, we’ve been thrown a lifeline to a piece of our cultural and culinary identity. So many things we would love to recreate for our own families become possible within these pages, thanks to the author’s diligent research, stunning photography, simply presented instructions and delightful stories.
