Middle Eastern Recipes
314 recipes found
Yotam Ottolenghi’s Tomato and Pomegranate Salad
Here is a dish that melds the best flavors of summer into a robust salad. Yotam Ottolenghi calls for cherry tomatoes, but summer’s best tomatoes would also be right at home among the feta, mint and za’atar, the Middle Eastern spice blend. Serve it alongside grilled meat, preferably in the back yard, summer nipping at the heels.
Warm Olives with Za'atar
Cucumber and Tomato Salad With Cilantro and Mint
Greater Los Angeles is a collection smaller cities, including Glendale, a center of the Armenian diaspora and home to one of the world’s largest Armenian populations outside Armenia. Fleeing religious violence in the late 19th century, genocide in the early 20th or the Soviet Union after that, Armenian Californians became integral in the development of the fig, raisin and bulgur businesses. They also opened restaurants. This salad comes from one of them, Adana. The chef and owner, Edward Khechemyan, gave me the recipe in 2013.
Kalleh Gonjeshki (Meatballs and Potatoes)
Kalleh gonjeshki is a comforting and nostalgic Iranian dish that, at its core, is a simple preparation of meatballs and potatoes simmered in a tomatoey sauce. Kalleh gonjeshki means “sparrow’s head” in Persian, and the name is a reference to the size of the meatballs. Every family has its own version of this childhood favorite, and the dish hits the spot on cooler evenings. Don’t replace the dried mint in the meatball mixture with fresh mint, as the dried mint contributes earthier notes and provides more flavor and fragrance. To cut down on time and pans, the meatballs are first baked in the oven, but you can also pan-fry them on the stovetop if you like. Kalleh gonjsheki is served with a side of bread, but you can also serve it alongside rice.
Rawia Bishara’s Brussels Sprouts With Tahini Sauce
This recipe is a mashup from Rawia Bishara, who has gradually adapted the home cooking of her childhood in Nazareth to the tastes of Brooklynites at her restaurant, Tanoreen. She'd never cooked Brussels sprouts before she arrived forty years ago, and she said that at first, deep-fried was the only way her children would eat them. We modern cooks may prefer roasting for a weeknight dinner, but the golden, crisp fried version should be experienced at least once. Sesame is one of the most universal flavors of the Middle East, and the base for many of its staples: tahini (sesame paste), hummus, halvah, and the spice mix called za'atar. But straight tahini sauce, with sesame, garlic, and lemon juice, comes on a little strong. The sweet sharpness of pomegranate molasses provides a counterpoint to the rich sesame, and yogurt lightens the mixture.
Turkish-Style Braised Green Beans
In this Turkish method, vegetables (and sometimes beans) are cooked in plenty of olive oil — usually with tomatoes, onions and one or two other ingredients — until they have almost lost their shape. Then they are cooled and served at room temperature, when their flavors are at their fullest. Very often an herb or citrus juice is added just before serving for a little spark; thick yogurt and lemon wedges are standard accompaniments. It’s probably obvious that these dishes are pretty much ideal for warm-weather meals. They not only can be made in advance, but also must be, so they can cool down. Even a day or two ahead is fine; just take them out of the refrigerator about 45 minutes before serving.
Grilled Eggplant and Tomatoes With Chermoula
Chermoula, the pungent Moroccan herb sauce that is traditionally used as a marinade for fish, is also great with grilled vegetables, like the last of the summer’s eggplant and tomatoes. You can use an outdoor or an indoor grill for these.
Pomegranate Molasses Butter Cake
Coat a tender butter cake with a pomegranate glaze and candied walnuts, and watch the whole thing disappear.
Smoked Bulgur and Pomegranate Salad
This colorful and flavorful mountain of bulgur, flecked with pomegranates, walnuts and herbs, is typical of the out-of-the box thinking of the chef Ori Menashe. He learned how to char vegetables in a heavy pan from chefs from Mexico City, who did a pop-up at his Los Angeles restaurant Bestia before it opened and showed him their technique for adding a smoky flavor to rice. (Libyan and Egyptian cooks also have started stews this way for centuries.) Just be careful about the hot pepper as it chars; it might make you cough, so keep the window open for the 6 minutes it takes to do this. This recipe yields 8 cups of cooked bulgur, but you only need 6 cups for the salad. Use those leftover 2 cups in other salads or add them to soups for heft and texture.
Haroseth
This recipe, adapted from Alon Shaya of Domenica Restaurant, an Italian restaurant in New Orleans, plays on traditional haroseth. Moscato wine takes the place of Manischewitz, and hazelnuts for almonds. A spin on a recipe from Mr. Shaya’s mother, Joan Nathan brought it to The Times in 2011.
Dried Lime Tea
Slightly funky, a little bit sour, and very aromatic, an infusion of dried limes is a good alternative to iced tea in the summer.
Turkish-Style Braised Leeks
Kebab Halabi
This recipe came to The Times by way of Dalia Mortada in a Sunday Review piece she wrote about the role of food in Syria's culture. She collected this simple yet flavorful dish from Ibtissam Masto, a 36-year-old mother of six, who fled to Beirut in 2013, from Idlib, Syria. In Ms. Masto's house, it is known as kebab halabi, or Aleppo kebab, but the dish is more widely known as kebab hindi, a simple ground beef kebab baked with a tomato-onion reduction.This version calls for adding a bit of onion to the meat mixture for moisture, and sumac to the tomato sauce to give it a kick. It’s a great 30-minute meal, best served with vermicelli rice.
Persian Chickpea and Chicken Dumplings
Roasted Dill Salmon
This oven-roasted salmon is adapted from the cookbook “Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories” (Flatiron, 2018) by Naz Deravian. The dish comes from Ms. Deravian’s stepmother, who likes to combine her native Japanese ingredients with Iranian ones like pomegranate molasses. Get a quick pot of rice started as the salmon marinates and you can have dinner prepped in less than 20 minutes. Serve with sheveed polo (Iranian dill rice) and make sure to drizzle plenty of the pan juices over the salmon and rice.
Persian Tamarind Fish
In this complexly flavored and highly sophisticated dish from the cookbook author Louisa Shafia, tamarind, caramelized onion, ground almonds and barberries are made into a thick and tangy paste that gets spread over fish fillets before baking. Thinner fillets work better here than thick, center-cut pieces. You want more surface area on which to spread the herbal barberry mixture, which can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge. If you can't find dried barberries, use dried cranberries instead.
Muhammara (Red Pepper and Walnut Spread)
Freeze vegetables at the height of the season, when they are at their Technicolor best, and you'll be rich with cooking options for months to come. For example, this muhammara, the Middle Eastern red pepper and walnut spread, can be made with either fresh red bell peppers or ones that you have chopped and frozen. The version made with frozen peppers is a little looser and lighter in color than the version starting with fresh peppers, but otherwise you sacrifice nothing having started with frozen produce — the two final spreads are similar in taste.
Grilled Tomatoes and Onions With Feta-Harissa Pine Nuts
This falls somewhere between a mezze salad, a sauce and a dip. It is rich and intense on its own but great as part of a meal with warm flatbreads, soft-boiled eggs and perhaps some labneh or thick yogurt on the side. Try to get your hands on the best-quality tomatoes you can find; the simplicity of this dish really lets the fresh vegetables sing. This is lovely eaten warm or at room temperature. It reheats quite well, its flavors intensifying as they sit overnight, and can be repurposed as a sauce spooned over grilled meats, couscous or pasta.
Braised Brisket With Pomegranate Juice, Chestnuts and Turnips
Sour Plum Molasses
Often made from sour varieties of pomegranates, apples, cherries, oranges and plums, sour fruit molasses is a staple in Northern Iranian cooking. Hanif Sadr uses wild plums that he forages in the Bay Area, which make his molasses extra sour, but store-bought plums work just as well. It’s a simple but long process, though it doesn’t take all day, as it would in Iran. Similar to preparing a fruit butter without sugar, this recipe calls to cook the fruit once to soften and release juices, then cook again to thicken. A nonstick pot prevents the molasses from burning on the sides and means less stirring. This molasses is worth the effort: You get a thick, spreadable sauce with a deep, caramelized plum flavor. Leftovers keep for a year refrigerated; use them for a variety of Iranian kebabs and stews, or mix with butter and rub on a whole chicken before roasting, as Mr. Sadr does.
Sabzi Polo (Persian Herbed Rice)
The star of this herb-flecked Persian-style rice recipe, by the actor and food blogger Naz Deravian, is the lavash tahdig — a crisp, buttery layer of toasted lavash flatbread at the bottom of the pot. Break it into pieces and use it to garnish the platter of rice, making sure everyone gets a piece. The rice itself is highly fragrant, scented with dill, mint and whatever other soft herbs you can get, along with heady saffron. You need to find thin flatbread to make this; the kind used for wraps is a good bet. It will take some time to clean all the herbs, but don't worry about taking off each leaf. Using tender stems and sprigs is perfectly fine.
Fish Stuffed With Herbs, Walnuts and Pomegranate
During Nowruz, the Persian New Year, it's traditional to eat fish, a symbol of life. This version, adapted from the chef Hanif Sadr, is stuffed with bij, a mixture of chopped herbs, walnuts and pomegranate molasses that forms the base of many northern Iranian dishes. After a short turn in a hot oven, the fish emerges with crisp, brown skin. The sweet and sour herb filling contrasts with the delicate, flaky fish without overwhelming it. You can use a food processor to chop the herbs if you’d like. It's key to do the herbs in batches (don't overfill the bowl of the processor), to pulse rather than run and to stop and scrape a few times for even chopping. Work until the pieces are nice and small, about an eighth of an inch or the size of a small sunflower seed, but not so far that they begin to break down and form a paste.
Roasted Cauliflower Soup
The color of sunflowers, this gently spiced soup comes from Yasmin Khan’s “Zaitoun: Recipes From the Palestinian Kitchen,” in which Ms. Khan explains that cauliflower is elemental in Palestinian cooking. Here, cauliflower florets and leaves are roasted in the oven with cumin and coriander until browned, the vegetable’s deep, nutty flavors coaxed out by the heat. Reserve some roasted florets and leaves for garnish, then simmer the remaining cauliflower mixture with turmeric and potato, which adds creamy texture to this thick, velvety soup. Sprinkle the soup with any remaining cauliflower, crunchy toasted almonds and as much fresh parsley as you’d like.
Carrot Maqluba
Maqluba is a traditional Palestinian dish made of rice, meat and fried vegetables, most often eggplants (in summer) or cauliflower (in winter), although some like to combine both, and add carrots as well. There are probably as many variations of this dish as there are families. A very popular, easy version is the one made with only carrots. Although maqluba is usually perceived as a time-consuming dish — you typically make broth, fry all the vegetables, assemble in layers and so on — this version uses a boneless, tender cut of meat, ready-made broth and a single pot. The whole dish is quick, and easy enough that you can make it on any weeknight in under an hour.