Wow, that took a long time! Sorry for the delay, folks, but here it is - the all new Olive Fig Grape layout! I went through a number of templates before I arrived at the one that seemed to fit best. Now we can finally get back to talking about Lebanese cuisine. A particular issue for me in my first 50 posts is that I didn't blog about enough of the basics. I don't mean how to hold a knife and how not to squeeze lemon juice in your eye but rather what constitutes the basic layout of a Lebanese table at dinner time.

A concept closely related to Lebanese cuisine is the idea of Mezze - a range of shared dishes served with the aim of inspiring congeniality and allowing for multiple tastes and sensations to be experienced (not unlike tapas, pintxos and all their long-lost cousins). Mezze is a quintessentially Lebanese concept - open your home and (more accurately) kitchen to friends, family, neighbours and whoever else because that is the essence of hospitality and the height of social interaction. Mezze platters usually consist of dishes such as batata harra, hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh and the like. Sometimes it strays into something more adventurous including things like bastirma, sujuk and one of my personal favourites muhammara. Sure, muhammara isn't technically a Lebanese creation but like much of the cuisine of the Levant, culture and identity overlap. Ful Medamas has about four million variations in the area between Cairo and Damascus and muhamarra is no different. If you didn't know, Muhammara is a hot pepper and nut dip that is great paired with hummus or simply spread on khubz. I love to eat it with grilled merguez. Mmm. The recipe below comes from my dad so any angry letters from any Syrians should be addressed to him.


Ingredients
1 red chilli
1 bell pepper
30g pine nuts
30g walnuts
30g pistachio nuts
30g almonds
a pinch of cumin
50g or so of breadcrumbs
1/2 a cup of olive oil
salt and pepper
juice of half a lemon (optional)

Method
The trick here is to break up the nuts by hand (I don't mean using your bare hands, read on). You can chop them if you're confident enough or more traditionally use a pestle and mortar to crush the nuts. Don't crush them too fine. Blitz the de-seeded chilli and red pepper in a food processor and mix with the crushed nuts. Add the remaining ingredients minus the olive oil. You want to work the mixture whilst pouring the olive oil in (don't do this in a processor, the olive oil will get bitter). The mixture might need more olive oil (it should moist but not too wet). The olive oil will help preserve it and it will keep for up to 10 days. Season it and then add the lemon juice if that's your preference. Serve with khobz or pitta bread and some hummus.

Folklore and Super Mario have us believe that mushrooms endow us with superhuman strength and vitality. The ancient Egyptians believed mushrooms to be the plant of immortality. Some fungi are so prized that they fetch nearly £2000 a kilo. But all the aforementioned withers when you're trying to convince a committed mycophobe to sample something you've just cooked. I think the texture as much as the taste is what gets to people. I don't think mushrooms are an acquired taste per se (but then again I was shocked to hear some people think of olives in the same light). I think many people who have an aversion (and not a full-blown phobia) to mushrooms can succeed in overturning their dislike by trying different kinds of mushrooms (there are over 38,000 varieties) in all sorts of recipes. I realise there's no real motivation for people who've avoided mushrooms to venture into the Mushroom Kingdom (I can't help myself) but I believe more people should give mushrooms a chance!

















One of the best ways to make mushrooms appealing is to choose a variety with a meaty texture (with a good helping of umami). Portobello mushrooms are perfect grilled, baked and in the ubiquitous veggie burger. I believe they can succeed in convincing your children or fussy other-half that mushrooms can be delicious. This recipe is so simple to execute for lunch or dinner that it's worth giving it a go. I baked my Portobello mushrooms with a garlic aioli (or toum in Lebanese Arabic), freshly picked young sage, pine nuts and a nice Provole cheese. You can substitute the garlic for pesto and the Provole for a stronger cheese (I'd be tempted to make this with Roquefort and walnuts).

















Ingredients
4 Portobello mushrooms
4-8 cloves of garlic
4-5 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
8-12 leaves of freshly picked young sage
a handful of pine nuts
as much Provole cheese as you like
salt and pepper to taste

















Method
Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth. Crush the garlic (with a little sea salt) in a pestle and mortar. Slowly add the olive oil a spoonful at a time and work with the pestle until the garlic and olive oil emulsify. Layer the sage leaves, the aioli of garlic and olive oil, the pine nuts and cheese onto the mushroom caps. Place in a baking tray and cook at a medium heat until the cheese bubbles and browns and the mushrooms are your preferred texture. Serve immediately.

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.

I need your help. Yes, you. I need help understanding how the addition of the word pizza to any circular-shaped baked dough product makes it fathomable all of a sudden. Are humans at a complete loss when faced with baked dough that vaguely resembles pizza or is it just another loose term employed by Mr. Marketing to make ethnic products easier to understand? We should celebrate each product for what it is! Lahmacun, paratha and quesadilla all stand up! And move to the side - it's mana'eesh time.

















Mana'eesh are as much Lebanese pizza as pizza is Italian mana'eesh. Usually eaten for breakfast or brunch they're a filling alternative to your usual morning meal. We usually eat these on Sunday when everyone is at home and we all chip in. We made three varieties of mana'eesh this time: za'atar (picked thyme, sesame seeds and sumac), kishk (dried yoghurt and cracked wheat) and a vegetarian alternative to lahm biajin.

Ingredients
Dough
350g plain flour
150g semolina
10g dried yeast
280-300ml lukewarm water
two or three teaspoons olive oil
salt

Za'atar
za'atar mix (thyme, sesame seeds, sumac)
olive oil

Kishk
dried kishk
half a large tomato
half a large onion
pinenuts (optional)
water
salt

Vegetarian Option
half a large tomato
half a large onion
handful of pinenuts
freshly picked thyme
olive oil
salt

















Method
Mix the dry ingredients for the dough and form a well. Slowly pour most of the water into the well and work the ingredients into a smooth, slightly sticky, ball. Do not overwork. Leave to rest at room temperature for half an hour before diving into 8 smaller balls.

Preheat the oven to 300degrees Celsius. Form each ball into a disk ready for the toppings. The za'atar just needs to be mixed with the olive oil and spread. The kishk requires a bit more work.
Heat a saucepan with some oil and fry the onions and tomatoes. Add the dry kishk and slowly work in some water. Make sure the final product is quite thick (the same consistency as a thick custard) before spreading on and adding pinenuts (optional). The vegetarian option requires no cooking but rather a brief period for the flavours to mix together - dice the tomato and onion and everything to bowl to let it infuse. Cook one at a time on a baking tray that isn't prone to warping at high temperature and serve when the crust is golden. There you have it, mana'eesh (not Lebanese pizza)!

Do you want to know how to start a fight in the Middle-East? No, not that. You ask delegates from each country a simple question - "Who invented kibbeh?". Actually you can replace kibbeh with hummus, tabbouleh, falafel...And you'll still get the same reaction. Aside from portraying Middle-Easterns as short tempered gourmands, my aim was to highlight that Kibbeh is a pan-Arabian dish. With Levantine roots.

















Being the national dish of Lebanon one shouldn't really mess with Kibbeh (short-tempered Arabs). So I didn't! My love for kibbeh is fierce and passionate. I have spent many a candelit night with a plate of kibbeh extolling the unmatched beauty of minced meat and bulghur wheat - a combination made in...Yeah, you get it. But one thing I knew was that merely saying you like kibbeh was like saying you like cheese - Which kibbeh? How was it cooked? What does it come with?

Pumpkin kibbeh is a classic Lebanese dish usually eaten in the areas around Mount Lebanon and I've tweaked my mums classic recipe for you lovely people. Hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients
Outer Shell
350g boiled and puréed squash (or pumpkin)
275g bulghur wheat
1-2 teaspoons of cumin seeds crushed
1 tablespoon of plain white flour
salt and pepper to taste

Filling
250g boiled and puréed squash (or pumpkin)
a handful of toasted pinenuts
1 large onion diced
1 1/2 tablespoons of dried mint
2-3 tablespoons of pomegranate syrup
1 tablespoon of dried raisins
1/2 teaspoon baharat*
a splash of olive oil
salt and pepper

*Baharat is a mixture of allspice, black peppercorns, cardamom seeds, cassia bark, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and nutmeg.

















Method
Peel and cut squash into small chunks. Boil until tender then either purée or...squash, ahem, the squash. Soak the bulghur wheat in hot water for twenty or so minutes (until all the water has evaporated). Mix 350g of the puréed squash with the soaked bulghur wheat and the crushed cumin seeds. Add a splash of oil and the flour. Add the seasoning and leave at room temperature until the filling is completed.

Gently fry a diced onion until transluscent and remove to a bowl. In the same pan toast some pinenuts and remove to the same bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients for the filling into the bowl and mix. Taste and add more baharat, pomegranate or seasoning if it needs it.

Fill a bowl with cold water and lightly grease a baking tray. Now it's the fun part - moulding the kibbeh! This is going to be hard to explain so bare with me! You need to roll the outer shell in one hand until a small stubby cylinder is formed. You then prick down through the top into the middle of the cylinder until you have a hole through the top (but not all the way through) the cylinder. Spoon in some of the filling into the gap and gently form the cylinder shape into a torpedo by moulding the outer shell gently to encompass the filling and cover the hole. Squash kibbeh is notorious for being hard to shape so take your time and keep dipping your hands in water!

















Place the torpedos (how cool does that sound?) onto the baking tray. You can now either bake or fry the kibbeh but I elected to bake. I sprayed some olive oil on to the kibbeh and let them bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes. How many pieces of kibbeh this recipe makes depends on how big your torpedos are (I managed to get 20). To accompany the kibbeh I mixed bio yoghurt with dried minute and topped it with pomegranate syrup. Lemon also brightens up some of the flavour. I've got a few more updated Lebanese recipes to upload soon but I also welcome any suggestions! Let me know!