This is my favourite way to BBQ chicken, the marinade of yogurt performs a small culinary miracle. It tenderises the meat beautifully and helps retain its moisture. The sumac gives it a summer lemon flavour with a nice heat from the pepper flakes. I made my own flat breads based on the way my grandmother use […]
Anatolian style kid goat loin with aubergine mash
In 1897 a woman called Maria Iordanidou was born in Constantinople, a city so grand the Greeks referred to as The City which is how it later got its name Istanbul which means ‘to the City’. She wrote a book called Loxandra a book about life, customs, the human spirit and food in Asia Minor. […]
Kid goat meat ravioli
Most weekends my grandmother cooked for her family. Lunch consisted of meat, potatoes, in big long iron trays cooked in an outdoor clay oven that had been heated with dry olive and carob branches. She also made a lot of pasta arranged in two large platters, one with pasta cooked al dente and another with […]
Veal with black eyed peas
My husband found an old cookery book in a second hand shop called Jewish Cooking In America. He gave it to me with a little trepidation as I don’t like receiving cooking books as gifts. It’s a gem of a book tracing Jewish cooking from Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey and Syria. There are so many […]
Wheat salad with lamb
The Oxford Dictionary tells me that a salad is “A cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredient” so on that basis my title is incorrect. I say the definition needs to be reviewed because it […]
Turkish Dolma
A few months ago my then 5 month old daughter was dependent on perpetual motion to help her sleep and so I found myself walking a lot. I would walk down Green Lanes in London (Turkish and Cypriot part) and I always discovered something new. One day I came across a Turkish supermarket off the […]
Mansaf with shoulder of kid goat
Celebrating the past, present and future with Mansaf made with shoulder of goat, turmeric rice and sumac roasted almonds Mansaf is synonymous with celebration and marking important life events. Slow cooked meat and rice served generously and proudly on a large plate and I cannot think of a better dish to celebrate the life and […]
Shawarma – Chicken wrap with Zhug, tahini and pickles
My uncle theorised that the reason why street food tasted so good and could not be replicated at home was down to the honest sweat of the vendor. At the time I pulled a face but I secretly agreed with what he was trying to say. My uncle while not a wordsmith had a point […]
Spicy lamb pittas (Arayes) with a yogurt and sumac dip
When I first started this blog I wanted to focus on dishes and ingredients from the East Med rather than specific countries because the countries in the region have so many dishes in common. Arayes is definitely one of those dishes that could be easily claimed by many countries as their own. Although often described […]
Hash with kid goat and Israeli hot sauce (Zhug)
Mondays are undoubtedly loathsome and so I set about to defeat the Monday blues by making one of my happiest dishes. I had made a leg of kid over the weekend and I cunningly kept back some of the cooked meat which I hid at the back of the fridge out of my father-in-law’s sight. […]
