pretty sure the frozen favas I’ve bought have all been peeled.
Found this image of a brand I’ve purchased before.
Thanks- good to know! This one I bought was the only choice at the store I was at.
The flavor is close enough to the smaller version I can get at indian markets so I’ll probably just use those next time (no intermediate peeling step required there either).
Interesting that broad beans in the US are sold peeled and not a standard ingredient. Round my parts frozen is available year round, fresh appears at the market in spring and summer. The skin/membrane is perfectly edible which is easily removed after a quick blanching.
Wiki has a list of Levant dishes some of which I recognise:
Moved
I’ve actually bought canned favas at a Greek Festival a few years back. I wound up making a hummus like dip with them and it was very tasty.
Will keep eyes out for frozen or fresh when shopping in Seattle.
Just found a couple Kindle deals on Amazon.com for anyone wanting to cook this cuisine:
Levant: New Middle Eastern Flavours by Rawla and Jumana Bishara
.99 cents
Olives, Lemons and Za’atar by Rawla and Jumana Bishara .99 cents
Found them last night and checked to make sure they are still on sale today.
Upcoming - a Claudia Roden recipe for Lebanese Ardishawki Mahsi (stuffed artichoke bottoms)
Her recipe calls for frozen artichoke bottoms but I’m using a jar (of which half will get frozen to be used in a forthcoming vegetable cous cous)
Onion fries in olive oil until soft and a bit coloured. Then lamb, S & P and allspice go in and everything fries for a bit. Separately, some pine nuts are fried and then added to the meat mix. The 'choke bottoms go in to a baking dish and are filled with the mix. Flour, lemon juice and water are mixed and then poured into the dish. Covered with foil, it bakes for 25 minutes at 180. We’ll have it, as suggested, with vermicelli rice.
There’s also supermarket houmous, jars of torshi and khobez bread to start.
Figs and yoghurt for afters.
I think this meets the thread’s brief.
(Recipe is from Roden’s “Arabesque”)
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Not a great success, unfortunately.
First there was loads more meat mix than could fit into the 'choke bottoms so a flawed recipe in that respect. And the flavours were just underwhelming - OK, there aren’t many ingredients and very minimal use of spice (and no herbs). But you know how it is with a very simple ingredient set - it can really work letting the flavours shine through. But not here. And the flour/lemon/water “sauce”, whilst not actively unpleasant was thin and not really lemony - I’m not at all sure what it was supposed to bring to party.
That said, nothing was lost. The remainder of the meat mix was perked up by a couple of heaped teaspoons of “sharwama spice mix” from the local Syrian food shop and a hefty dollop of sriracha. And, when I was looking in the fridge for the houmous, I came across a bowl of thick raita that we had with some dahl I made the other night.
Oh, and I opened a new jar of torshi (sorry - I only know the Turkish word for pickles) - pickled wild cucumber. Really good. Cukes about the the size of your finger with a really nice crunch.
I don’t think a Claudia recipe has ever let me down so much.
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I have most of Claudia Roden’s books, and I usually am quite satisfied with the recipes. The only book of hers that leaves me totally uninterested is the one on coffee. Nor was I a fan of the 2nd Ave Deli in New York, about which she published positive comments. But in general I like her.
Recently I made the eggplant salad from Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s Jerusalem. I grilled the eggplants over a charcoal fire. Since the amounts I ended up with didn’t correspond to the amounts in the recipe, I ended up using more of the condiments (olive oil, lemon juice, coriander, mint) than the recipe called for. Everyone loved it. One young lady, a declared lover of chocolate mousse, declared that this eggplant dish was even better than chocolate mousse.
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Growing up any extra spiced rice meat mixture was folded in brown bag paper and added to the pot with the stuffed squash, vine leaves or what ever.
We’re planning a fairly generic Eastern Mediteranean dinner. The meat element is a recipe from Nigel Slater (from Kitchen Diaries 1) which screams Cyprus to me. As such, I think it ticks the Levant box as Presunto’s link upthread but I’m happy for it to be ruled out of order for the thread as being “too Greek”.
Lamb chops are marinated for an hour in lemon, olive oil, S & P, garlic and thyme and then cooked in a ridged griddle pan. Feta is crumbled, mixed with mint, more thyme and a slosh of olive oil. The mix goes on top of the cooked chops. Alongside, a salad of sliced red peppers (from a jar as I can’t be arsed roasting my own) and a tin of butter beans - dressing of chopped preserved lemons, oil, garlic, lenon juice and parsley.
If I can find any at a none too silly price, I see figs, sliced in half, drizzled with honey and lemon and baked. With vanilla ice cream. Or, if I can be fussed, I may drive to Syrian Sweets a few minutes away and get them to make me up a small selection of baklava-esque Levantine sweets.
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Change nothing up!..sounds delish!!!
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Why A Classic Levantine Dish Is Sailing From Canada To Syrian Refugee Camps https://n.pr/2VockPm
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Great story there - thanks for sharing it with us, Christina. By the by, I see the article’s author originates from my part of the world.
The dish mentioned, mujadara, is written up as a main course, to be eaten with pickles, but my local Syrian/Lebanese restaurant serves it as a carb, instead of plain or vermicelli rice. It’s lovely, although I’m not convinced by the almost crispy onions that top it - at least in the restaurant version they border on being burnt. But it’s certainly something I’d recommend folk cooking this thread have a try at.
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Very interesting article .
Jadara as well called it is is a fantastic dish. A dollop of yogurt (leban) on top works well too
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Well, what do I know. Feast won a James Beard award for the International category.
Based on a similarly disappointing experience with another recent winner (Deepa Secrets), I won’t be relying on JBFA much 
I have barely cooked a thing in the last three weeks due to a long vacation and general busy-ness, but I did manage to order Turkish for lunch today and wanted to comment on the general fabulousness of grape leaves. The dish I always order from this place is exceedingly simple - just salmon wrapped in grape leaves and grilled, dressed with lemon and oil - but it is incredibly delicious, much more than the sum of its parts. The grape leaves get crispy on the edges and the salmon steams inside to a perfect, meltingly tender texture.
Anyone have any favorite grape leaf uses to share?
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I’m afraid my experience of vine leaves is limited to dolmades. And, even then, I’d generally buy them ready made than make my own.
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