Root Vegetable

A delicious Turkish dish—the rich meat is offset by the cool yogurt.

Serve with potatoes.

This Lebanese specialty is served as an appetizer, but it is also good as a main course accompanied by mashed potatoes. Calf’s liver has a better flavor and texture, so use it if you can.

A popular way of serving kibbeh nayyeh, which makes it more of a grand dish, is with this ground-meat sauce. Veal is popularly used.

These are the most prestigious and popular kibbeh. The preparation requires skill and application. The art lies in making the outer shells as long (at least that is what we thought in Egypt, for I know now that the Lebanese prefer a small, oval, stocky shape) and as thin as possible. The crisp, light, tasty shells should crack to divulge a juicy, aromatic meat filling. Serve hot or cold with tahina cream salad (page 67), baba ghanouj (page 65), and other salads.

For a grander presentation, people make potato croquettes with the ingredients, using the ground meat and nuts as a filling and sometimes dipping in beaten egg and flour before deep-frying. But it is far simpler and just as good to make it in a baking dish. It makes a delicious and filling dish for a large group.

Because of its whiteness, this is a festive dish served on the New Year to augur a year full of happiness. It is served hot with rice in winter, and cold in summer.

This is good hot or cold. Serve with yogurt and salads.

Stifatho is a Greek dish also made with beef. Serve it with rice or potatoes.

This is a specialty of Aleppo in Syria, where it is traditionally baked in a round tray and served on a round dish, with the rolls arranged in a coil.

Serve as an appetizer accompanied, if you like, with a sauce called keema, the recipe for which follows this one.

The dish takes its name from the Ottoman pasha who administered Mount Lebanon in the nineteenth century. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes. The meatballs are usually fried, then cooked in a tomato sauce, but baked this way they have a light, fresh flavor.

This is one of my favorites. You will need a large shallow pan that can go to the table. In Morocco the cooking is finished in a wide earthenware tagine which goes on top of the fire. Serve it with plenty of warm bread.

I love this Arab equivalent of shepherd’s pie.

This is a Moroccan version of a dish you find in many Middle Eastern countries. Serve with bread.

This intriguing layered dish with a delicious mix of textures and flavors is a specialty of the city of Hama in Syria.

Tagine barkok, made with or without honey, is one of the most popular fruit tagines of North Africa. It is eaten with bread. Restaurants in Paris accompany it with couscous and bowls of boiled chickpeas and boiled raisins (see page 377).

They call it the Tunisian cassoulet.

The dish derives its name from the Arabic word for apricot—mishmish. Only a tart natural—not sweetened—dried or semi-dried variety will do. Fresh apricots may also be used, in which case they should be added at the end and cooked for a few minutes only, so that they don’t fall apart. The reason why there is fresh gingerroot rather than the ground spice which is usual in Morocco is that the recipe comes from Paris. Serve with bread.