Pineapple and salmon ceviche
With temperatures hovering around 95F, who wants to cook? Here is my feeling on salmon: Either get wild salmon or you might as well eat chicken. So I don’t buy salmon often, but the store had a sign ” Copper River wild Salmon”, which proved irresistible. I mean did...
Read More »
Banana flower and shrimp salad
I had seen these banana flowers last summer in Tyre, our southernmost coastal city lined with banana plantations. As it turns out, they are consumed in many countries in Asia, just not in Lebanon (or the rest of the Levant for that matter). These flowers are mild-tasting (like a...
Read More »
Mysterious fruit (or vegetable)
This is a component of a food that most Americans are very familiar with and eat at least several times a week. CARE TO GUESS WHAT IT IS? Or DO YOU KNOW?
Potato kibbeh pie
This is the easiest kibbeh pie you will ever make. No stress is involved here: just pick your favorite potatoes, boil them and mash them and mix them with some bulgur (added protein!) and herbs. Make a separate filling such as a ground beef with onion and bell peppers...
Read More »
Sweet vermicelli pasta (Sh’ariyeh be-sukkar)
In the Lebanese kitchen, capellini or vermicelli pasta is used on a daily basis to make our rice and pasta pilaf. This is a sweet version I read about in Ina’am Atalla’s Simply Lebanese. Mrs Atalla recalls how this dessert used to be her mother’s standby when people would...
Read More »
Meat pies, Lebanese-style (Sfeeha)
If there is one pastry item that deserves a standing ovation from the Lebanese kitchen, it is sfeeha (pronounced s-f-ee-ha with the “a” like apple). What is sfeeha? A little meat pie; made extraordinary by the folks in Baalbeck (the number one tourist destination in Lebanon, site of incredible...
Read More »
Goat cheese homemade in a jiffy
Let’s say you want to have some goat cheese but you don’t want to buy some already made; here is an easy and delicious solution. No need for rennet tablets or any special equipment. Grab a jar of goat yogurt at the store, dump the contents either in a...
Read More »
Radish tops lasagne with goat cheese
Do you know what you could do with radish tops besides salads and pesto? Pasta, that’s what! I had bought some daikon radishes and these things have giant tops, so I thought why not use them while making pasta? The result? A green pasta, rolled out extra thin, and a...
Read More »
The best mashed potatoes (Lebanese-style)
I remember it as if it was yesterday: Mom showing me how to mash potatoes; she grabbed a fork pressing the tines a few times on the boiled potatoes, grabbed the olive oil and drizzled a thin filet swirling it around to cover most of the surface; sprinkled some...
Read More »
