Mediterranean, Middle Eastern Recipes
12 recipes found
Steamed or Roasted Beets and Beet Greens With Tahini Sauce
I usually roast beets, but I decided to steam them for this dish. I then added some water to the steamer and blanched the greens – though you could also steam them. Beets take about the same time to steam as they do to roast, and it’s a good option if you don’t want to heat up your kitchen with the oven. But I find that roasted beets have a richer flavor. Here, the flavor of the tahini sauce is so pungent that it doesn’t matter if the beets are muted.
Chopped Herb Salad With Farro
This dish is modeled on a Middle Eastern tabouli. Add just one cup of cooked farro or spelt to a generous mix of chopped parsley, mint, arugula and other herbs like basil or dill. Notice that I’m calling this dish a chopped herb salad with farro and not a farro salad with chopped herbs. It’s modeled on an authentic Middle Eastern tabouli, which should be all about the parsley, with just a small amount of bulgur. I add just one cup of cooked farro or spelt to a generous mix of chopped parsley, mint, arugula and other herbs like basil or dill. There are also chopped tomatoes in the mix, all of it tossed with lemon juice and olive oil.
Lara's Persian Pickled Garlic
Spiced Maqluba With Tomatoes and Tahini Sauce
Maqluba is a layered rice cake eaten throughout the Arab world. It’s a bit of a showcase dish, made for special occasions, traditionally layered with chicken and vegetables and unmolded after cooking. This vegan take has a savory top layer of caramelized tomatoes, like an upside-down cake. The crispy shallots, available at Thai or Asian food markets, add a welcome crunch but don’t worry if you don’t have them: The dish works well without.
Chickpea, Quinoa and Celery Salad With Middle Eastern Flavors
It’s the sumac (available in Middle Eastern markets) and the herbs – dill, mint, chives – that give this salad its Middle Eastern accents. I love the texture and flavor of the chickpeas, which make for a substantial and comforting dish. It’s all you need for lunch and makes a delicious light supper. I love abundant, thinly sliced celery in just about any lemony salad; you will appreciate it for its texture as well as its flavor. Of course, you can use canned chickpeas, but if you have the time, try cooking some dried chickpeas to see how good they taste.
Cucumbers With Feta, Mint and Sumac
Garden-grown summer cucumbers are ideal for this easy salad, but even hothouse cucumbers are vastly improved with this zesty treatment. The sumac powder can be found at Middle Eastern groceries or online spice emporiums. Sumac adds a pleasant sour flavor that lemon juice alone does not provide. To keep the cucumbers crisp, don’t dress them more than 30 minutes before serving.
Freekeh, Chickpea and Herb Salad
There is a lot to love about freekeh, an earthy grain that I’d like to see catch on in more kitchens. It cooks up in about 25 minutes, and it’s light, like coarse bulgur, which it resembles, except that the color is darker and greener. But freekeh has a more complex flavor than bulgur. What stands out is its smokiness, a result of the production process, in which durum wheat — the type used for many pastas — is harvested while still green and soft, and carefully roasted in the husk over open fires. The wheat is beaten to remove the chaff, and in the Middle East it is sold whole or cracked. The cracked version is what you’re more likely to find here in the United States, and happily it’s become easy to do so. Look on the shelves of Middle Eastern markets, at whole-food markets or online. Cracked freekeh is tastier and easier to work with than whole freekeh. Add it to soups or stews, or use in the same way you would use rice or bulgur. The cracked wheat has a grassy, herbal quality that also makes it great for use in lemony salads like this one, in which the freekeh is tossed with chickpeas, scallions and a welcome dash of bright green in the form of fresh mint and parsley.
Spiced Lamb Sausage With Green Lentils
Cold Poached Pacific Cod with Spices
If you use a whole fish, you can use the bones to make a fish stock for poaching. But fillets can also be poached in a lighter broth. They are rubbed with a Middle Eastern spice mix.
Lara's Yogurt Balls
Rice Pilaf With Pistachios and Almonds
This dish is inspired by a number of Persian rice pilafs, but it’s simpler, and calls for much less butter than an authentic Persian pilaf. There are sweet and tart flavors at play here, especially if you use barberries, but apricots also have a tart edge to them. Rose water makes the pilaf wonderfully fragrant.
Chard Stalk, Chickpea, Tahini and Yogurt Dip
When you’ve bought a bunch of Swiss chard and used the leaves for another dish, like an oven-baked frittata with yogurt, Swiss chard and green garlic, save the stems. Then you can make this dip, which is a cross between hummus and classic Middle Eastern dip called silqbiltahina, made with chard stalks and tahini. I’ve added lots of yogurt to the mix. I love to use some red chard stalks because they give the dip a beautiful pale pink hue. This will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. It will become more pungent as it sits.