Food
Today’s recipe by the wonderful Lama Gharaibeh is a creamy, dreamy delight full of fabulous Middle Eastern flavours. Layali Lubnan translates as ‘Lebanese Nights’ and is a heavenly combination of cream, pistachios, rose water, mastic, honey, and orange blossom water. Even better, it can be prepared ahead of time, which makes it the perfect choice if you’re entertaining this Eid or need a make-ahead showstopping dessert for a dinner party!
Today we’re heading to North Africa, where bakeries and home cooks alike all across the region are busy preparing for Eid Al Fitr, including preparing delicious makrout biscuits just like these! These sweet treats are stuffed with a fragrant date paste spiced with cinnamon, and traditionally they are deep fried before a decadent soaking in syrup or honey infused with geranium water.
We’re so lucky to be able to share a very special recipe for Tunisian Makrout with you today, thanks to Nesrine Toujani of Treats Homemade, who has preserved her grandmother’s recipe and is sharing it with us all to enjoy at home.
Today we’ve got a fabulous sweet treat for you courtesy of Muna Kenny at Munaty Cooking – Luqaimat! Wonderfully crunchy on the outside, delicately spiced with cardamom and saffron, and meltingly soft within, Luqaimat are drizzled with honey or date syrup to create a dessert to die for. Muna’s recipe even includes her secret hack to ensure that your Luqaimat have that perfect crunch. We do warn you, you won’t be able to stop after just one – Luqaimat are so good that they featured in A Thousand and One Nights!
Today we’re very excited to share a recipe designed by award-winning cookery writer and food artisan Dima Sharif! Her Musakhan Canapés are the perfect dish for iftar get-togethers (the evening meal after dusk falls and the day of fasting ends), dinner parties or Eid celebrations. This imaginative spin on mouthwatering traditional Palestinian musakhan is the perfect appetiser to serve at your next do – and even better, they are suitable for vegans and vegetarians for the ultimate in stress-free entertaining.
If you’re anything like us, some of your favourite parts of travelling are the incredible food and drinks you get to taste along the way, especially in the Middle East and North Africa! From the heady scent of cardamom and the succulent taste of slow roasted lamb to the delicate fragrance of rose and orange blossom water, the joy of burning your fingers as you rush to tear off a piece of khubz fresh out of the oven, or the glorious sweetness of a cup of sage-infused tea sipped by a campfire in the desert, the tastes of the Middle East and North Africa are some of our most precious memories of travelling in the region.
We’re taking a delicious trip across the Middle East and North Africa via a mouth-watering array of dishes and drinks. Middle Eastern and North African cuisine is hugely varied, drawing on the wealth of herbs and spices available in the region and age-old traditions from hundreds of different cultures. From mint tea and qahwa to delicious stews, succulent barbecued carp, and even snails with lavender, there are so many incredible flavours to discover and this list of food and drinks to try is just the beginning.
If you’ve fallen in love with the incredible taste of Arabic coffee, or qahwa, but never managed to recreate it at home, we’ve got you covered! This week Pink Jinn is collaborating with Medina Coffee to bring you the ultimate recipe for qahwa, so you can enjoy perfect Arabic coffee from home.
Learn all about the wonders of Yemeni coffee beans and dive into the world of coffee with us, from its discovery to the darker chapters of its story. Read on to find out about the history hiding within your morning latte, and explore the delicious world of Arabic coffee with the incredible Medina Ilyas!
The culinary traditions of the Middle East are much incredibly varied, particularly as we head south, across the rugged mountains and vast deserts of the Arabian Peninsula towards the Sultanate of Oman. Here’s a recipe for Omani Qabooli Rice with Lamb Shanks to wow your dinner party guests, courtesy of Dine with Dina.