Something about the term superfood really grates me.  I mean I've never imagined a blueberry in a cape or an avocado ridding the world of all tyranny. Sure, I believe in the power of consuming foods that are nutritionally good for us, but this talk of foods we must be consuming (and buying at a premium) to rid ourselves from potential ailment and disease doesn't sit well with me. I do believe there is a relationship, if not direct correlation, between diet and health (physical and mental) and we shouldn't sneer at sound advice. The term superfood (as used in marketing terms) is just used as leverage by the supermarkets and suppliers to charge an exorbitant amount for something that was 50% cheaper last year and it's my belief that this isn't sound advice.

Okay, so this is clearly fuelled by demand and supply, but this illusory demand has been created by the media and their shit-mongers. I'm here to give you a piece of really good advice. You don't need to spend £10 on goji berries or have a shot of aloe vera before breakfast. No, what you need in your life is...brace yourself...you might have heard this before...it's...balance! Oh how simple was that? Eat your greens, don't fry everything, switch to using rapeseed (canola) oil, make sure you get some fibre, drink plenty of water and exercise once in a while. There's also no problem in treating yourself every now and then so don't feel bad about it. To both completely remove the shackles of faux-nutritionists and parody the superfood ideal, I've used blueberries in my version of a shortbread tart (and topped them with clotted cream). You could alternatively make biscuits out of this recipe by rolling the dough and baking it on a flat tray. Either way I hope you enjoy this. Bon appetit!

Ingredients
150g plain flour
25g rice flour
50g sugar
100g good quality butter
100g of blueberry jam
50g of clotted cream
a few blueberries to decorate

Method

Mix the two flours, the sugar and the butter in a bowl by hand. You want to form the ingredients into a dough that just about sticks together (hence the term short). If it's not quite right you can use a splash of water or milk to get it there. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour before diving into equal sized balls. Grease a muffin tin and place one ball in each mould (should make about 12) before pressing down in the centre and working to the sides of the muffin tin (so you have a hollow muffin base shape out of the dough). Bake until golden at 180-200C making sure to prick the bases with a fork every 3 or so minutes to stop the dough from expanding. Cool on a wire rack before filling each shortbread base with a tablespoon of super-duper blueberry jam and a teaspoon of clotted cream. You could use any other kind of jam if you aren't convinced by the muscles of the humble blueberry - I think apricot is pretty damn delicious. Make yourself a pot of tea and have some fun.

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.

I have a love-hate relationship with cupcakes. Maybe it's just that I find cupcakes rarely satisfying enough as a dessert or a snack. They're one of those things that I find really challenging to make, let alone perfect. It's taken me three batches to get to a level where I was happy enough to publish a post on them. Contemporary cupcake places rely heavily on the icing or frosting to mask an inferior base. For me the base is the hard part - if the actual cake element isn't up to scratch then the frosting is but a layer of polish. Maybe calling it a base is a mistake. The cake simply has to be worth eating. Just like a muffin has to be delicious beyond the top. We can't just go around eating the tops and leaving everything else!



















In order to find a cake I was happy with, I experimented around with different techniques and recipes but settled on one that I thought could yield results similar to what I was aiming for. I used a pound cake recipe and then drizzled some of the cakes with syrup before layering on the buttercream. I made three different cupcakes: lemon, strawberry and rose, and ultimate vanilla. I think the strawberry and rose cupcake was the most successful but my guineapigs came to different conclusions.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

150g plain flour

125g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter - softened

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons of baking power

Syrup

1 part sugar

1 part water

flavouring (for the rose syrup: good quality rose water; for the lemon syrup: juice and zest of a lemon; for the vanilla syrup: vanilla extract)

Buttercream

85g butter - softened

160g icing sugar

flavouring (I used strawberry extract for the rose and strawberry cupcake and vanilla extract for the other two cupcakes)

Method

Sift the flour and baking powder three times and set aside. Whisk the other ingredients on a fast speed setting for 3 minutes until the mixture has expanded and paled in colour. Add the flour and baking powder and whisk for an additional minute. Spoon the mixture into eight muffin size cups and let rest at room temperature for half an hour. Bake at 180C for 20 or so minutes until golden and puffed. Whilst the cakes are baking you should make the syrup of your choice. When the cupcakes come out of the oven (and are still hot) you should poke the surface of the cakes with a toothpick before layer a teaspoon or two of syrup. Let the cupcakes cool and then make the buttercream by working the icing sugar slowly into the butter. Add the flavour and then using a piping back (or a palette knife) layer the buttercream onto the surface of the cupcakes. That's your chance to be creative (and messy; see pics).

It's that time of year when pretty much everyone is on holiday and you get to spend more time with family and friends. The recent good weather coinciding with the start of the English Premier League season brought about a fun weekend filled with excessive football viewing and excessive meat consumption. We're all allowed to take weekends off from saving the planet with our flexiconscious approach to meat consumption. I guess there's a part of me that has to do the exact opposite of what celebritits tell us to do (clickity click). Okay I just really wanted to say celebritits. I will make sure Monday is meat-free. But before that I have some food porn to share.



















Ingredients
Shish Taouk
600g of skinless chicken breasts - cut into large cubes
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 a cup of yoghurt
1 teaspoon of cumin
a large pinch of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons of ketchup
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper



















Barbecued Sea Bass
4 sea bass - cleaned
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon crushed coriander seeds
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

Method
Shish Taouk
Ideally you'd marinate the chicken overnight. The yoghurt helps tenderise the meat and keep it succulent so you want to give it time to work its magic. All you need to do is pretty much prepare the marinade and let the cubed chicken sit overnight to take on the flavour (and colour). Once the BBQ is hot enough, you should put the cubes of chicken on (preferably metal) skewers and grill until completely cooked through. You can serve this with barbecued peppers and onions or next to some garlic yoghurt.



















Barbecued Sea Bass
Once again you just have to mix the ingredients for the marinade and let the sea bass take on the flavour. I think 1 hour will suffice. BBQ the bad boys up and serve with lemon wedges and on the side of some tabbouleh.

Watermelons are a big thing in my family. Actually, I think they might be a big thing in everyone's family. I think my family's obsession stems from my father; whose love of watermelon sometimes brings into question whether the love between man and fruit should really reach such heights. For him, a watermelon is a delicate thing, every stage has an intricate process. When we go to the market to pick out a watermelon he'll spend 15 to 20 minutes in ritual carefully choosing which watermelon we'd take back home with us. I don't know if this is a family thing (I mean we've never been great athletes or scholars but we may have the watermelon game down to a tee) but my dad seems to have an inner understanding of the complexities of the humble watermelon. He knows the significance of each shade of green on the outer skin and what each bump signifies (like a watermelon phrenologist) which helps him to consistently pick the most ripe, the most beautiful watermelons. So you can gather that this time of year our house is full of wonderful watermelons that are asking to be used up in creative ways and I think I have a really easy summery recipe to do just that.

















Watermelon and feta is not a new combination to most Lebanese people. It's a flavour pairing that has been around since my parents were in their youth (in the 60's) and it's a favourite summer snack around our household. It's rarely ever made into a salad but I think it works with a few added twists. I've used Greek feta in this recipe but my parents prefer using a Bulgarian cheese which is not too dissimilar to the Hellenic variety but has a more complex flavour. I've also included a few chopped almonds for a bit of a different texture but you can exclude them if you so wish. Here it is:

















Ingredients
500g watermelon - diced
115g feta cheese or similar - diced
handful of fresh mint - chopped
handful of fresh basil - torn
small handful of roasted almonds - finely chopped
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
a little black pepper
2-3 shallots - really finely diced


















Method
This may just be the simplest recipe yet. Brace yourselves...


















Mix all the ingredients together. Let it sit for a few minutes. Try not to break up the cubes of cheese. Garnish with mint and serve with a side of olives.

After a succession of posts that ventured away from the traditional ideals of Lebanese cuisine I've decided to dip my toes back into the tried and tested. But words are cheap and I didn't actually abide by any classic notion of what a fattoush salad is. But that's part of the fun of making a salad, it's an open invitation to be creative and I've altered and/or exchanged some of the ingredients and I've included some alternative techniques to give this classic a new lease of life. I began this blog to experiment with what New Lebanese cuisine could be and I believe this recipe to be a marker of what simple creative changes can produce. My variation of this salad is best described as the illegitimate love child of an exotic Lebanese fattoush and a sultry Tuscan panzanella. Hungry yet?

















Ingredients
* radishes
* tomatoes
* stale bread
* cucumber
* spring onion
* courgette
* lemon
* good quality extra virgin olive oil
* sea salt and pepper
* cumin (optional)

* denotes that you should put whatever quantity of each ingredient you fancy, it's more fun to tailor this salad to your tastes.

















Method
Cut the stale bread into bite size pieces (you may need to put the bread in the oven for a few minutes so you can cut it without it crumbling everywhere). Chop the tomatoes, radishes, cucumber and spring onions roughly and place in a bowl. Drizzle with quite a bit of olive oil and lemon (the bread will soak the liquid up so over dress the vegetables) and sprinkle on the salt and pepper. Mix in the bread and let it sit at room temperature for the flavours to infuse.

















Marinate sliced courgettes and radishes in olive oil, lemon and a little cumin and char grill for a few seconds. Spoon the salad into a bowl and place the grilled vegetables on top. Drizzle with more olive oil to finish. Fattoush. Done.

A fisherman stands cliff-side at the edge of the Raouché staring with intent at the water between him and the Pigeons' Rocks. The liquid tempest yearns for his attention and its waves become more pronounced and more seductive. The salty air of the Mediterranean comforts him, it's a smell that's ingrained into his Beiruti psyche - much like the smell of mahmoul being made or diesel burning. He hesistates for split-second but throws his fishing net through the air and into the water. It's 5am and the only other person on the Raouché beside the fisherman is a lonely ka'ek seller who looks at his cart in disdain. A few minutes pass and the fisherman's attention is locked on the water. He stands restless for some time before dragging the net out of the water to find a catch of smaller fish largely featuring fish from the sardine family. He feels content again.

This time of year is one of plentiful stock of fish from the sardine family. Beirutis and all Lebanese alike enjoy sardines throughout the summer months in a variety of recipes. Today I have attempted to recreate a dish that I remember from my childhood - Sardines Bil Foron or sardines in the oven. Simplicity at it's best. Believing in locality of produce I opted to buy Cornish sardines for this recipe - I got them cleaned by the fishmonger.

Ingredients

500g Sardines cleaned
2 medium tomatoes chopped
1 medium red chilli whole
1 red onion diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons lemon juice + zest
1/2 tablespoon cumin seeds crushed
1/2 tablespoon fennel seeds crushed
1/2 tablespoon coriander seeds crushed

















Method

Toast the cumin, fennel and coriander seeds in a dry pan for 10-15 seconds at a medium heat. Crush in a pestle and mortar till fine. Put all the ingredients minus the fish in a deep baking tray and mix together. Place the fish in the baking tray and massage the rest of the ingredients in. Leave to marinade in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200C and cook the fish for 5-10 minutes until done. Serve with a simple leaf salad, chips or bulgar wheat.

Simplicity itself that allows the sardines to shine! Enjoy!