Lebanese

Lebanese restaurants serve these cut in wedges as appetizers. A whole bread accompanied by a salad makes a good snack meal. Use a thin type of Arab or pita bread with a pouch.

A Syrian and Lebanese specialty.

A rustic Lebanese salad.

Fattoush is a rustic country salad of Syria and Lebanon which is on the standard menu of Lebanese restaurants. The old, traditional way was to moisten and soften the toasted bread with water and a little lemon juice before imbibing it further with the dressing, which made it deliciously soggy. Nowadays it is usual to put the bread in crisp, like French croutons.

Osmaliyah has been known for generations in my family in Egypt as konafa and I have featured it before. I include it here again because, of all the Lebanese pastries that are good to make at home and to serve at a dinner party, this is one of the best; it is my mother’s recipe. It is meant to be served hot but it is also good cold. You can buy the soft white vermicelli-like dough frozen in Lebanese, Turkish, and Greek stores. In Lebanon, it is called knafe but in America it is sold by its Greek name, kataifi, usually in 1-pound packages; it should be defrosted for 2 to 3 hours. The quantities below will make one large pastry to serve 10, but you can also make two half the size—one to serve fewer people and one to put in the freezer to bake at a later date. It freezes well uncooked.

Kibbeh forms a major part of the national dishes of Lebanon. There are countless versions, from a raw meat paste to little, oval shells stuffed with a ground meat filling and deep-fried or cooked in yogurt or bitter orange juice, as well as vegetarian kibbeh with pumpkin or potato, and one with fish—each version having a number of regional variations. One thing they all have in common is bulgur (burghul in Lebanon). Since most are labor-intensive and require skill and application, they are not the kind of thing you undertake if you are not part of the culture. So I was very happy to discover a traditional kibbeh that was truly delightful and relatively easy, with only one layer of kibbeh and a flavorsome onion and pine nut topping. I found it in a little restaurant in Beirut called Kibbet Zaman (Yesterday’s Kibbeh). It can be served hot or cold (I prefer it hot) as a main dish or cut up small as a mezze. It is really worth doing—I guarantee you will surprise your guests. Accompany it with baba ghanouj (page 248), hummus (page 249), and a salad

Roz bil shaghrieh is the everyday rice that accompanies stews, stuffed vegetables, and grills in Lebanon. People also eat it by itself with yogurt poured over. The short-grain rice from Egypt is the traditional rice used, but today basmati is preferred. Middle Eastern stores sell Italian “cut” vermicelli called filini and similar Turkish Şehriye, but otherwise you can buy vermicelli nests and break them in your hands into small 3/4-inch pieces.

A number of dishes that go under the general name of fatta all have in common a bed of toasted bread, soaked in stock, and a topping of yogurt. The name denotes the manner of breaking up crisp, toasted bread with your hands. To me, they recall a special person, the late Josephine Salam. Many years ago I received a letter from her from Beirut saying that she had a number of recipes she thought I would like. On our first meeting, at Claridge’s tearoom in London, where a band played Noël Coward tunes, she offered to come to my house and show me how to make fatta with chicken. We made that and many more meals together. It was the time of the civil war in Lebanon, and as she came and went from the country, I received an ongoing account of everyday life in the ravaged city. Her daughter, Rana, has become an artist and designer. For her thesis at the Royal College of Art in London, she asked me to give a lecture on the history of Middle Eastern food. She had ten portraits of me painted on cloth by a poster-painter in Egypt (he used photographs I gave Rana) and hung them around the college to publicize the event. She laid out foods and spices as in a souk, put on a tape of sounds and music recorded in an Egyptian street, and passed around Arab delicacies. When she visited me a few years later with her husband and new baby, I offered her the fatta with stuffed eggplants on page 300.

Wild chicory is used for this Lebanese mountain salad. The sweetness of the caramelized onion topping is a contrast to the slightly bitter leaves. You can sometimes find bunches of wild chicory, which has long, dark green leaves, in Middle Eastern stores, but ordinary curly endive—what the French call chicorée—will do very well. The salad can also be made with dandelion leaves.

One advantage to being married to a Lebanese man is that the food of his people is fantastic. I've never been able to perfectly replicate a single dish my mother–in–law makes until now: mahshi batinjaan, which my husband despises due to a lifelong aversion to eggplant. But ask yourself: How could he possibly resist this dish's charm? Once you slice through the silky flesh to reveal a fragrantly seasoned lamb and rice stuffing, this deceptively simple one–dish dinner is absolutely luscious and satisfying. (Editors' note: This recipe is solely the creation of Melissa Roberts and has not been formally tested by the test kitchen.)

Have you ever visited the marketplace of Jerusalem and noticed small wooden imprinted molds with handles? To be sure, the merchant is hard put to explain their significance. They are ma'amoul molds. Ma'amoul means "filled" in Arabic, and these molds make filled cookies eaten by Jews and Arabs throughout the Middle East, especially in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. A piece of short-pastry dough the size of a walnut is pressed into the crevices of the ma'amoul mold. A tablespoon of date or nut filling is inserted, and you close the pastry with your fingers. Holding the handle of the wooden mold, you slam it on the table, letting the enclosed dough fall out. On the top of the cookie is a lovely design. After baking and rolling in confectioners' sugar, the design stands out even more. Of course, the ma'amoul mold is not necessary to the preparation of these sweets, though it certainly adds to their beauty. The tines of a fork, tweezers with a serrated edge, or a tool of your own devising will do quite well. The following ma'amoul recipe came from Aleppo to the Syrian Jewish community on Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn. These cookies are served at Purim. A similar cookie, called karabij here (nataife in Syria), topped with marshmallow fluff, is also served at Purim. Arasibajweh—rolled cookies from the same dough and stuffed with dates—are served at the New Year or Hanukkah.

Food editor Melissa Roberts drew on the influences of her husband's Lebanese heritage when she created this dish, rich with the spices and textures of the Middle East. Each bite of chicken combines crisp skin with moist meat and is savory with a hint of sweetness. Pistachios and raisins pump up the "chew" factor.

There have been Lebanese living in Latin America for more than 100 years, and the community in Mexico is particularly large, so creating a Mexican version of tabbouleh is not as odd as it might seem. This version is less time-consuming than the original, because cilantro can be chopped up, stems and all, whereas parsley leaves need to be picked off the stems.

Burgul Bi Bandoura This hearty side dish is typical of everyday cooking in the Lebanese and Syrian mountains, where cracked wheat, or bulgur, is far more abundant and less expensive than rice, which is reserved for special-occasion dishes.

Serve with: Warmed flatbread. Dessert: Vanilla pudding with sliced mango.

Fine bulgur might seem like a specialty ingredient, but it is actually in most supermarkets under the name Near East Taboule Wheat Salad Mix — just toss away the seasoning packet.

I got the idea for this recipe from my Lebanese mother-in-law, Leila Matar, who often makes a tahini dressing for green salads. It also turns up in her kafta (meatloaf), on falafel, and, with some parsley and extra lemon, over fried or grilled fish. Active time: 5 min Start to finish: 5 min

Koosa Claritas — pale green, slightly rounded zucchini — are traditionally used in this dish, but we find that yellow zucchini make for a more attractive presentation because they don't discolor when cooked in tomato sauce.

Called fattoush in Lebanon, this colorful dish is offered as a first course at Al-Amir restaurant in Portland, Oregon.