Mediterranean & Middle East Recipes

⏱ Prep: 15 min 🔥Bake + broil: 18 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌍Origin: Middle East Sheet pan kebabs give you everything that makes kofta worth making, ground lamb and beef seasoned with cumin, allspice, paprika and fresh parsley, juicy inside and lightly charred at the edges without a grill, without skewers, without standing over anything. The spiced meat goes into a sheet pan, gets pressed flat and scored into strips, roasts at high heat until the edges caramelize, hits the broiler for two minutes to finish, and comes out ready to pull apart and stuff into warm pita with tahini sauce …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 15 min 🔥Cook: 45 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌿Diet: Vegan, gluten-free Lebanese moussaka, maghmour has nothing to do with the Greek dish that shares its name. No layers, no béchamel, no meat. Just roasted eggplant and chickpeas simmered in a rich tomato sauce built on golden onion, garlic, cinnamon and dried mint, finished with good olive oil and eaten warm, at room temperature, or cold straight from the fridge with pita bread. The word moussaka comes from Arabic and means cold, a clue to the dish’s origins and one of the reasons it shows up on Lebanese mezze tables …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 5 min 🔥Cook: 15 min 👤Serves: 2 Origin: Turkey (Ottoman) Turkish eggs in garlicky yogurt sauce, çılbır, pronounced chil-bir is a dish that sounds unlikely until the first bite, then immediately makes sense. Poached eggs laid on a thick bed of garlic yogurt that has been brought to room temperature, finished with a butter sauce sizzled with Aleppo pepper until it turns deep orange and fragrant. The three elements, cool tangy yogurt, soft runny egg, warm spiced butter, hit at the same time when you break the yolk and swipe through with bread, and the result is richer …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 1 hr 30 min 🔥Cook: 15 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌍Origin: Turkey (Kayseri) Turkish manti are small handmade dumplings, somewhere between ravioli and a wonton, filled with seasoned ground lamb or beef, boiled until tender, then served in a way that makes them taste unlike either: a cool, garlicky yogurt spooned generously on first, the hot dumplings laid on top, and then a sizzling paprika and dried mint butter poured over everything at the very last moment. They take time. A real afternoon, ideally with someone else at the table helping fold. In Kayseri, the city most famous for …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 10 min 🔥Cook: 20 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🌿Diet: Vegan, gluten-free Turkish potato salad, patates salatasi is nothing like the mayonnaise-heavy version most Americans grew up with, and that’s entirely the point. Tender potatoes tossed while still warm in a dressing of good olive oil, fresh lemon juice and sumac, scattered with green onion, flat-leaf parsley, red onion and a pinch of chili flakes. Light enough to sit on a mezze table in summer heat without anyone worrying about it, and honest enough to serve as a side dish all year. Ingredients Step by step What sumac does that …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 15 min 🔥Cook: 45 min 👤Serves: 4–6 🫘Origin: Lebanon, Levant Lebanese white bean stew, fasolia bi lahme, is one of those dishes that every Lebanese household makes slightly differently and everyone eats without complaint. Beef or lamb browned in olive oil, simmered with cannellini beans in a tomato sauce built on garlic, cumin and fresh cilantro, finished with a squeeze of lemon that cuts through the richness just before serving. This is not a complicated dish. It is a deeply satisfying one, especially served over vermicelli rice with bread on the side to finish the sauce. Ingredients Step …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 25 min + 30 min rest 🔥Bake: 20–25 min 👤Makes: 20–24 cookies 🍵Best with: Tea or coffee Lebanese kaak anise cookies are the ones that fill every Lebanese bakery window, small golden rings or ropes of dough, crisp all the way through, fragrant with anise seeds and a touch of mahlab, rolled in sesame seeds before baking. They are not soft cookies. They are not meant to be. They are the cookie that cracks cleanly when you bite into it and tastes better the longer you let it sit with your tea. Simple dough, thirty minutes of resting, …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 10 min 🔥Cook: 45 min ❄️Chill: 3 hrs 👤Serves: 4–6 Turkish rice pudding, sutlac, is the dessert sold in nearly every muhallebici, the milk-pudding shops scattered across Turkey that specialize in nothing but creamy, comforting things like this. Rice simmered slowly in milk until soft, thickened with cornstarch rather than eggs, poured into individual dishes and broiled until the top turns deep golden brown and slightly bubbled. No fuss, no special equipment. Just patience and a good broiler. Ingredients Step by step Why it looks thin until it’s cold Sutlac is one of the few puddings where the …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 30 min 🔥Cook: 1 hr 15 min 👤Serves: 6 🌍Origin: Iran Zereshk polo barberry rice is the dish that shows up at every Persian wedding, every Nowruz table, every celebration that calls for something both beautiful and delicious. Fluffy saffron-scented basmati rice studded with tiny tart barberries that have been briefly cooked in butter and sugar, served alongside saffron chicken and crowned with a piece of crispy golden tahdig pulled straight from the bottom of the pot. Sweet, tart, fragrant, and one of the most visually stunning dishes in all of Persian cooking. Ingredients For the rice and …

Learn more

⏱ Prep: 20 min 🔥Cook: 1 hr 15 min 👤Serves: 6 🌍Origin: Saudi Arabia Saudi kabsa is widely considered the national dish of Saudi Arabia, chicken simmered until tender in a richly spiced tomato broth, that very broth then used to cook the basmati rice that absorbs everything the chicken left behind. It’s warmly spiced rather than fiery hot, with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and dried lime giving the whole pot a fragrance that’s instantly recognizable across the Gulf. Finished with toasted almonds and raisins, it’s the dish that shows up at every Saudi celebration, served on a big shared platter …

Learn more