Lebanese-style breakfast
Snake cookie
My mom lived in Dallas for a couple of years and being a very sociable person, she joined the newcomer’s club, made friends with all of the neighbors, and pretty soon had a fully booked social calendar with bridge parties, luncheons, museum visits and the like. This is the...
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Buckwheat burger
This recipe is from Maria Speck’s Ancient Grains for Modern meals. Maria’s background interested me: She is from a Greek mother and a German father; and is married to an Indian. The challenges of coping with contrasting cultures (and the resulting richness) makes for an interesting cookbook, which is...
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Lamb shanks and rice
This is the quintessential comfort dish, which can be served with rice or bulgur (coarse bulgur) or roasted green wheat (freekeh). Lamb shanks and chickpeas are slowly simmered in a lightly spiced broth; rice is then cooked in that broth with pearl onions. I added some craisins and nuts...
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Pistachio brownies
This time of year, we’d be getting fresh pistachios called Aleppo’s pistachios (fustuk halabi), and nibble on them for hours on a lazy summer afternoon. These brownies are a sort of cream cheese brownie, except the cheese is combined with (homemade) pistachio paste. Get some hulled pistachios and make the...
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Labneh and butternut sauce for pasta
This is a very easy sauce to make. The contrast between the sweetness of the squash and the onions and the sour taste of labneh or yogurt is (in my mind) pleasant. The texture is rich and creamy, yet the sauce is light (especially if you make the...
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Pull-away cheese rolls
There is a delightful tradition in the Middle-East called sobhiyeh, (meaning morning), which means a morning get-together. Our neighbors in the Chouf mountains would often invite us to a sobhiyeh (and we would reciprocate) and this would always entail cups of Turkish coffee being served and lots of...
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Handkerchief pasta (Fazzoletti)
I was having a discussion with Chef Luca Paris during his radio show and the topic of pasta came up; I told him that there has been some evidence pointing to pasta having first been made by the Arabs; his quip was “Maybe, but the Italians perfected it!”. No...
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Pistachio cream for dieters
Did you ever experience having people turn down a dessert you slaved over saying “sorry, I am on a diet”? Nearly everyone is on a diet these days and this is a solution. Serve it in a mini-container (each serving less than 100 calories), and no one will refuse...
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