I've been thinking about my blog a lot recently. I had a sudden sense of urgency in the last few days after realising that I'd been neglecting the classics of Lebanese cuisine. Whilst my aim is to be a bit more creative there is a use to having solid tried-and-tested recipes populating this blog. Tabbouleh is one of those things that is so simple that it allows for wide and varied interpretation. It might not be any stretch of the imagination to presume every family in Lebanon has their own tweaked version and I bet every person thinks their mum's version is the best! I'm going to avoid modesty and go all and out and suggest my mum's version is up there.



















Ingredients
3-4 small bunches of parsley
2 beef tomatoes
8 fresh mint leaves
2 spring onions
2 tablespoons fine bulgur wheat
2 medium lemons
2-3 tablespoons good quality olive oil
salt and pepper



















Method
Finely chop parsley and spring onions. Dice the beef tomatos and add to the parsley and onions. Rip the mint into small pieces, add the bulgur wheat, the juice of the two lemons, the seasoning and the olive oil. Mix and let sit for at least an hour. Serve as part of a mezze or with lamb cutlets.

Sometimes words only exist to complicate something so simple. Out of Monday blues and summer-lust comes this recipe combining three simple ingredients: ripe Pakistani mangoes, a traditional sheep and goat's milk halloumi and freshly picked mint. Not a hint of Lebanese to it. Oh well.

























 Ingredients
200g diced ripe mango
200g sliced halloumi
5-6 leaves of freshly picked mint


















Method
Heat up a griddle pan and and sear the halloumi for 30 seconds on each side. You need the pan to be smoking hot to get good grill marks. Dice the mango and pick the mint leaves before combining the three ingredients. Make yourself a drink, grab some crusty bread and make your way to the garden to enjoy this delicious salad.

Mmm, ribs. Oh how I love thee. I find nothing more equally delicious and frustrating as ribs. Actually, there are quite a few ingredients that frustrate me mainly due to how much goes to waste (artichokes, lobster, crab, red mullet). Ribs seduce you only for them to reveal that 1/3 is fat, 1/3 is bone and if you're lucky 1/3 is flesh. But that's probably what makes them delicious - the idea that you have to work for a small amount of reward. I'm not a culinary masochist but I like getting involved in my food - sometimes utensils are an unnecessary barrier between us and our food and that connection should be more involved. Sure you'll be frustrated for a while but if another tray of ribs come out you'll be back on them like a cartoon wolf. Below is my idea of the perfect way of preparing ribs. Hope you like it.

Ingredients
a kilo or so of lamb ribs
2 tablespoons dried mint
2 tablespoons of pomegranate syrup/molasses
2-4 cloves of garlic crushed (optional)
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds crushed
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (optional)
salt and pepper
fresh mint to garnish

















Method
You need to let the ribs marinate overnight so do this the day before. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and massage until everything is well coated. Cover with cling film and put it in the fridge for the flavours to infuse. Fire up a barbecue or your oven and cook the ribs until golden (you might need to baste if in the oven; quite a bit of fat will drip from the ribs). Serve with torn fresh mint.

It may come as a surprise to those who don't live in London that it does, in fact, have four seasons. And no I'm not talking about the hotel chain. And no those seasons aren't just four shades of grey. It's somewhat excusable to have held that belief in the immediate past when for nigh on three years the British summer never took flight so we all...took flights. This year, though, we're at the tail-end of a heatwave and everyone is searching for a way to cool down. This recipe is a reworking of a Lebanese classic known as shishbarak, which has nothing to do with skewered meat or the US President. This recipe also requires very little work, so you have no reason to suffer in the heat this summer. I think I see a raincloud overhead...

















Ingredients
Soup
one pot bio yoghurt
75-100ml of water
a tablespoon of dried mint
some chopped parsley
however many crushed garlic cloves you fancy
olive oil
salt and pepper

Pasta parcels
a basic dough (flour, water, salt, olive oil)
3 shallots
2 teaspoons pinenut
a pinch of allspice
a pinch of mint
rapeseed oil
salt and pepper

















Method
Pasta Parcels
Make the dough and roll to about 1cm thickness and cut circles about an inch in diameter. Fry off the shallots in rapeseed oil until transluscent, add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Pick up a circle and stretch to a desired size. Fill with 1 teaspoon of the shallot and pinenut filling. Fold over to create a semi-circle and press the edges down to seal. Put these in the oven until the parcels are golden.

















Yoghurt Soup
Put all the ingredients in a cold pan and work with a whisk. Check the seasoning and then put your feet up and wait for the parcels. Pour into a bowl and then add the parcles - sprinkle with dried mint and pour olive on top. Tuck in.

So how does one alter the idea of what moghrabieh can do as an ingredient? One must seek inspiration from his stomach, of course. A few blog posts ago I said my gluttony was firmly skewed towards the savoury polar extreme and I'm here outing myself as a liar. I'm a glutton, nothing else. Sweet, savoury, bitter, sour...Absolutely anything. I'll try the vast majority of things for that new kick (balut excluded). I subscribe to Anthony Bourdain's philosophy - being a picky-eater is such a first-world luxury. But I guess you can argue that so is haute cuisine. Moderation is the key and we all know it. It's just hard to admit it.

















In search of a sweet kick I went to the dark side. I used moghrabieh to make a dessert. I know, it doesn't sound right. But what's right, right? Anyway, the cherries were infused with Orange Blossom and the moghrabieh flavoured with vanilla and oranges. This was much more delicious than I'd anticipated but it possibly needs some tweaking. Any ideas? Maybe chocolate pieces?

Ingredients
handful of cherries
glug of orange blossom water
vanilla pod
one medium orange zested
two handfuls of moghrabieh
milk
water
cream if you're feeling indulgent
sugar
sprig of mint to garnish

















Method
Remove the stones from the cherries and sprinkle with sugar and pour on the orange blossom water. Leave in the fridge for an hour before making the dessert. Initially place the moghrabieh and a glass or so of milk and the opened and scraped vanilla pod in a pan. Gently heat until the moghrabieh is nearly fully cooked and then add the cherries. You may need to add water to thin it out if it's getting too thick. Cook until the moghrabieh is tender. You might want to stir every two or three minutes. Turn off the heat when cooked and add the cream and orange zest. Serve in a bowl with the mint and voila!

Next up on this blog: something for the carnivores.

Choux pastry dough or pâte à choux is probably one of the most important recipes to learn if you're serious about desserts. Pastry chefs are known for being more methodical in their approach to a different side of the gluttony spectrum. Choux pastry, thankfully, isn't that scientific. It's all a matter of knowing what you're aiming for (much like the method used in solving a riddle) and applying the base recipe correctly. I thought of this recipe reading the Roux brothers' eponymous cookbook from the early 1980's. I hope you enjoy it!

















Ingredients
Homemade Jam
500g hulled and crushed (British!) strawberries
200-300g of jam sugar (with pectin)
1 sprig of freshly picked mint

Pâte à Choux
50g butter
125ml water
70g all purpose flour
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 large eggs

Decoration
Sieved strawberry jam with a splash of water
icing sugar
Cornish clotted cream (optional)

















Method
Jam
Prepare two jam jars. Hull and crush the strawberries in a saucepan. Add the sugar. Heat up the mixture on a low heat (making sure the sugar dissolves completely) and bring up to a rolling boil. Boil for 3-4 minutes and no longer. Pour into jam jars and let the jam cool down completely before adding the mint and refrigerating the jam. This should make one and a half jars of jam.

















Choux Puffs
Put the water, butter, salt and sugar in a pan on a low heat. Bring the mixture to a boil (making sure the sugar has dissolved and butter has melted (like that wouldn't happen)) and take off the heat. Pour all the flour onto the mixture and work the flour in (it may appear lumpy but don't fret, keep mixing). Put back onto a medium heat and work the paste for a few minutes to dry out some of the moisture. Pour the paste into a bowl and let it cool down for 5-10 minutes. Whisk the two eggs together and pour them slowly into the cooled paste, making sure to work them until fully incorporated (into a thick mayonnaise consistency).

Using a piping bag form twelve equal blobs of choux paste onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Brush the 'blobs' (haha) with egg wash and put into a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for 30 minutes (leaving the door ajar for the last 5 minutes and prodding the side of the pastries with a knife to release steam). Make sure the choux puffs are nice and crispy otherwise they'll collapse. Cool down slowly and then slice the bottoms so you can fill them. I filled mine with the cooled jam (but you can also include some clotted cream with the jam as a filling). Stack the puffs on a plate and sprinkle the icing sugar on top. Eat away. Take a nap. Do it all again tomorrow.