Za'atar, an omnipresent condiment in Middle Eastern cuisine, is regularly comprised of just three humble ingredients: thyme, sesame seeds and sumac. Often thought of for its purported medicinal qualities, this burgeoning elixir is of unassuming origins with grand designs on Levant cultural identity. On the palate, a slightly acerbic, tangy hello gives way to a subtle floral greeting. Comprising of both herb and spice this ancient mix blooms much like the flowers from where it was born, when met with protein, dough or simply a glug of olive oil.

This recipe combines the tang of za'atar with deep fried poultry, a Middle Eastern fried chicken recipe if you will. Soak this in buttermilk for a few hours before dispensing of the milk and sprinkling on a seasoning made up of flour, za'atar, lemon zest, a pinch of sweet unsmoked paprika and salt. Fry at the highest temperature for 10 minutes and serve with a wedge of lemon.

The Lebanese way of living dictates that food plays a central part in everyday life, social occasions and revelry. Celebrations are especially grand affairs where families, friends and neighbours come together to not only salute the happening of a certain event but to also indulge by eating lovingly prepared food. Something in the Lebanese psyche equates food and love and nowhere is that better shown than during a celebratory event, be it a wedding or otherwise.

One of the most elusive but enticing celebratory dishes is something known as meghli, a spiced rice-based dessert made to commemorate the birth of a new child. It is one of the things I most look forward to during family gatherings and on occasion have made it as a dessert on a regular week-night. Some things are special and as such are reserved for befitting occasions but I believe we can elevate meghli into becoming a quintessential Lebanese dessert. Flavoured with caraway, anise and cinnamon and topped with a multitude of optional extras, meghli is a real show stopper.

Ingredients
200g rice flour
2.5l of water
200g of sugar
20g caraway seeds (ground)
10g aniseed (ground)
10g cinnamon (ground)

optional extras: dessicated coconut, blanched almonds, pine nuts, pistachios and sultanas.

Methods
Pour two litres of water in an adequate saucepan, reserving 500ml in a glass jug. Add the sugar to the pan and heat up to boiling point (making sure the sugar has dissolved). Mix the remaining ingredients into the reserved water making sure to mix through thoroughly. Add the mixture to the sauce pan and once again bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and let the pan simmer, whisking as it cooks. This will keep bubbling for 30-45mins until the rice flour has thickened the meghli considerably. It sounds like hard work and I guess it is but it'll be so worth it. The cooked mixture will yield twelve small bowls/pots which you should fill as soon as you turn the heat off. Cover the tops with cling film to avoid the meghli forming a skin. You can eat it warm but generally it's eaten colder. Sprinkle with any of the optional extras and tuck in! Addictive, isn't it?

Here is the second part of the Lebanese Cuisine Basics series and this is another of my personal favourites. Mutabbal (or what is better known as Baba Ghanoush) is a smoky aubergine dip that is the grander, more interesting sibling of that well-known but ubiquitous chickpea dip. Mutabbal relies on the interplay between smoky aubergine, creamy tahini and the citric acidity of lemon and is more pronounced than hummus bi tahina. If the ratio and preparation are right, this simple dish is elevated into more than just something to sink a few pita chips into. Top with paprika, pomegranate seeds and a sprig of mint and you have a great salad. I guess you could cut the aubergines into chunks (once smoked) instead of turning them into pulp, which could produce an interesting texture. This recipe is one my mum has used for decades so it's stood the test of time. It's too easy to not try once!

Ingredients
1 large aubergine
3 teaspoons of tahini
2 tablespoons of yoghurt
5 teaspoons of lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
a good few glugs of olive oil
a  sprinkling of salt

handful of pomegranate seeds (optional)
dusting of sweet or smoked paprika (optional)
sprig of fresh mint to garnish

Method
Pierce your aubergine a few times with a fork (to let out steam) and place it on an open flame on your hob. Use tongs to avoid burning yourself. Your aubergine should start to smoke up, blister and wrinkle (so turn on your extractor fan). Keep turning the aubergine until completely tender and charred and set aside until cooled. Peel off the skin and chop up the aubergine. Add to a bowl along with the tahini, yoghurt and lemon juice. Add the crushed garlic and however much olive oil you fancy. Season to taste and then do actually taste to check whether the ratio between the tahini and lemon juice is right. Add tahini if the mutabbal is too acidic or add lemon juice if it lacks a sharpness. Spoon onto a serving plate and dust with paprika. Cut a pomegranate in half and tap the skin with the back of the spoon to release the seeds and scatter on the mutabbal. Add a spring of mint and some more olive oil. Toast some bread and tuck in.

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.

Another week, another soup. I can't believe it has actually been a whole week since I last posted. I've had one of the strangest weeks of my life but I think I'll save that story for my autobiography (yeah, right). However, something that kept me going through the past seven days was the promise of good simple autumnal food. This time of year is great for richer, more filling foods and nothing fulfils more than a good bowl of soup and some crusty bread.
























One of the things I really associate with this time of year is this version of kishk soup. Kishk is a fermented mixture of dried yoghurt and cracked wheat which is a very popular staple in the mountainous regions of central Lebanon. When I was younger we usually ate kishk as a topping on mana'eesh and even then it was on special occasions. Although my parents made it at home, I always savoured our trips to the local Lebanese bakery where they would make the most exquisite kishk mana'eesh. It wasn't until I was in my teenage years that I started to appreciate kishk soup and how good my parents use of it was. My dad's version in particular is the one that inspired me to have a go and this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Ingredients
2 beef tomatoes - diced
1 medium onion - diced
2 cloves of garlic - crushed
1 tablespoon of butter
1 cup of kishk
2-1/2 cups of water
seasoning (if needed)
1 tablespoon of pine nuts
1 tablespoon of almonds
a few parsley leaves

Method
Fry the onions in butter and a little olive oil until translucent. Add the garlic and fry for 20 seconds. Add the tomatoes and cook gently for five minutes. Pour in the dried kishk and water into the pan and raise the temperature. You want the soup to be at a gentle boil (a bit further than a simmer). Cook for 10-15 minutes (the soup should get thicker and will continue to do so as you take it off the heat). Taste the soup and season if necessary. In another pan fry the almonds and pine nuts in a little oil until golden brown. Fill a bowl with the soup, scatter on a few of the nuts and top with a few parsley leaves. Serve with crusty bread.

Warak Einab. Dolma. Dolmades. Vine Leaves. Aren't they just the most delicious? I was thinking about how peculiar it was to a person who'd never eaten vine leaves to be served vine leaves for the first time. The texture may not suit some but the taste is universally delicious. Garlic, mint, lemon, rice and lamb? Yes, please! However, I opted for a really old fashioned recipe. This version contains no rice and no meat whatsoever. I've also paired it with a thick Labneh (click here for recipe) because it adds a much needed cool creaminess to the dish. I'm sorry that I only have one photo and that the recipe may not be exact but I think it's definitely worth the hassle.

















Ingredients
1 pack vacuum packed vine leaves (around 80 but you only need half)
3 beef tomatoes
2 medium sized potatoes
2 medium sized onions
1 1/4 cups bulghur wheat
4 spring onions
1/2 cup of parsley
2 tbsp chopped mint
1 tsp unsmoked sweet paprika
2 tbsp tomato concentrate
4 cups of water
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 -2 tbsp olive oil

Method
Technique
Okay, first up you need to the know the technique for rolling these bad boys. You need to place each leaf completely flat on a chopping board (rougher side facing down) before proceeding to cut off the stem at the bottom of the leaf (if it's still there). You need to spoon one to two teaspoons of mixture into the centre (just a tiny bit below dead-on) before rolling the right and left hand sides of the leaf inwards. You then roll the bottom up (not too tight) making sure to keep the opening at the bottom (so it doesn't unroll). Now onto the stuffing...

Stuffing and Cooking
Chop the spring onions and 2 beef tomatoes really finely before adding to the bulghur wheat. Add half the tomato paste, half the paprika, the parsley, the mint and seasoning to the wheat before making sure to mix well so everything is distributed evenly. You can add a splash of water or olive oil to give the mixture a better feel. Roll the vine leaves as above. This should make 40. Slice the potatoes, onions and the remaining tomato and add to the bottom of a large pan. Gently place each of the stuffed vine leaves on top of the potatoes, onions and tomato in the pan. Add the rest of the paprika and tomato paste, olive oil, lemon juice, water and some seasoning (the vine leaves should be 3/4 immersed). Bring to a slow simmer and place a cover on and cook for 25 - 30 minutes on a low heat. Some of the vine leaves may have torn but that's okay. Leave the vine leaves to cool slightly before serving with a spoonful of Labneh. Mmm.

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.