Please share Middle Eastern recipes that interest you, or that you recommend, or would like to discuss.
Middle Eastern cuisines includes the cuisines of Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Palestinian Territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
I’m posting some nut-free pastries that are filled with cream or cheese here. This is a tangent from my thoughts on nut-free baklava on the Turkish thread.
These shaabiyat are a cheese - filled pastry from Lebanon that are similar to baklava. They contain no nuts.
Middle Eastern is probably my favourite “foreign” cuisine - mainly the food from the more western countries - Lebanon/Syria/ Palestine. Truth be told, I don’t cook it at home that often - it’s usually easier ( and better quality) to get a home delivery from our nearby Syrian restaurant.
I do make a “cheat’s shawarma” using leftovers from a lamb roast, dusting it in baharat and frying to crisp it and warm it through. If there’s no leftovers, but there is lamb mince, I’ll make koftas flavouring them with grated onion and parsley.
Alongside, I make houmous. I know everyone says using dried chickpeas is the best but I don’t have the will to do that, so settle for second best using a tin of chickpeas.
It needs a salad of course and I find either the Gazan salad or fattoush recipes in Yasmin Khan’s Zaitoun to work well. The fridge always has jars of olives and assorted pickles that I buy from the Turkish supermarket a few minutes drive away.
Speaking of Yasmin Khan and her book, I recently cooked a green beans in olive oil recipe (fasolia by zait). You fry onions till soft, add garlic, a little cumin and allspice, a tin of tomatoes , touch of sugar, s & p. Put a lid on and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, boil the beans till almost soft, drain and mix into the tomato gloop. My notes for this say I reckon it would work alongside any plainly cooked lamb, chicken or fish giving you both a veg and a sauce
Spinach, pomegranate and feta filling in a yeasted dough.
There was a restaurant here that used to make a nice dish of chicken livers with pomegranate sauce. I see a bunch of recipes on the net, but I’m looking for a proven recipe, if anyone has one.
I’ve seen recipes from Jacques Pepin and a slew of other chefs that indicate that the center of the liver has to be pink, but I’m leery of anything chickeny being pink. Thoughts?
I used to have a Lebanese family as next door neighbors, and the smells coming from their back yard in the summer used to be to die for! Then one day I mentioned to the woman that my wife was away for a few days; an hour later her husband showed up with a plate of amazing food (thinking I didn’t cook, no doubt). Explained the smells. I made a cake and returned the plate with the cake in it.
Absolutely. Chicken, lamb or calves liver needs to be pink - otherwise you’re going to be eating old boots.
It’s only chicken I was questioning; the others, definitely pink. I don’t by any means cook them into leathery oblivion, but was wondering about pink chicken, notwithstanding the Japanese penchant with chicken sashimi.
I concur. Livers get bitter and tough when overcooked. Pink is the way to go.
@BarneyGrubble there’s a fab Lebanese place in Berlin that makes a delicious rendition of those livers in pomegranate sauce (sawdit dajaj). I have not made these myself, however, so I hesitate to share a random online recipe.
Chicken livers should be pink; if you are concerned about the quality of the chicken, find a butcher you trust!
Liver needing to be pink is cultural conditioning, same as the way seafood is “supposed” to be cooked, or steak.
You won’t find those “tenets” in play from the Middle East across Asia.
If you like pink liver, make it that way. If it skeeves you out, cook it till done through.
Liver isn’t pink in sorpotel, and that is perfectly delicious, as are plenty of other dishes that that aren’t from the western canon.
Re recipe, it appears to be a popular home dish across the Middle East, so it shouldn’t be too tricky — garlic and pom molasses seem to be the key components, with additional seasonings varying (pepper only, or cumin, cinnamon, and even ras el hanout).
(Sounds a lot like an italian style recipe I make quite often, with balsamic vinegar to glaze the livers. I like caramelized onions in that, and sometimes go rogue with a pinch of garam masala.)
These look good — one recipe is from the London Lebanese restaurant Yalla Yalla without much spicing, the other is a more spiced version from an Egyptian blog.
I’ve been resisting buying chicken liver for a few weeks now, but you may have done me in 
Not really.
It’s more about not wanting to eat meat that’s tough as old boots
The fear of overcooked liver has me hesitate to order it out anywhere — which is a shame, bc calf’s liver Berlin-style is a thing of beauty.
Again, cultural.
It’s not tough as boots just because it’s fully cooked. I’ve eaten it fully cooked many times, without that being the case.
But if that’s your only experience when you’ve eaten it that way, it would be your expectation.
There are lots of parts of the world where pink meat wouldn’t be served for safety reasons. And the meat is still delicious.
I like the sound of this one, likely bc of the suggestion to add pistachios 
Absolutely nothing to do with culture, as far as I’m concerned
But, if that’s your personal experience, then that’s your personal experience.
