Onion

Takleya is the name of the fried garlic-and-coriander mix which gives a distinctive Egyptian flavor to a number of dishes. It goes in at the end. In Upper Egypt they chop up and mash the okra when it is cooked. Serve hot as a side dish with meat or chicken.

Combinations of fresh and dry vegetables are called tbikhas in North Africa. All kinds of vegetables—peppers, carrots, turnips, cardoons, spinach—are cooked together with chickpeas and dried beans. This dish can be made hot and peppery with harissa, but it is very good without.

Ma’louba means “upside down” in Arabic. This is a layered meat, vegetable, and rice dish which is turned out upside down like a cake without disturbing the layers. A special wide pan with short straight sides is used to cook it. The eggplant is normally fried first, but broiling in this case does not impair the flavor. It is famously a Palestinian dish. The rice absorbs the meat sauce and the flavor of the eggplants and becomes soft and brown. Serve it with yogurt.

This is as good cold, when it is served as an appetizer with bread, as it is hot as a side dish. It is the kind of thing people make with the leftover insides of hollowed-out zucchini when they stuff them.

This makes a good side dish. The Arabs brought it all the way to Spain and Italy.

Serve with potatoes.

A popular way of serving kibbeh nayyeh, which makes it more of a grand dish, is with this ground-meat sauce. Veal is popularly used.

These are the most prestigious and popular kibbeh. The preparation requires skill and application. The art lies in making the outer shells as long (at least that is what we thought in Egypt, for I know now that the Lebanese prefer a small, oval, stocky shape) and as thin as possible. The crisp, light, tasty shells should crack to divulge a juicy, aromatic meat filling. Serve hot or cold with tahina cream salad (page 67), baba ghanouj (page 65), and other salads.

Because of its whiteness, this is a festive dish served on the New Year to augur a year full of happiness. It is served hot with rice in winter, and cold in summer.

This is good hot or cold. Serve with yogurt and salads.

Stifatho is a Greek dish also made with beef. Serve it with rice or potatoes.

This is a specialty of Aleppo in Syria, where it is traditionally baked in a round tray and served on a round dish, with the rolls arranged in a coil.

Serve as an appetizer accompanied, if you like, with a sauce called keema, the recipe for which follows this one.

The dish takes its name from the Ottoman pasha who administered Mount Lebanon in the nineteenth century. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes. The meatballs are usually fried, then cooked in a tomato sauce, but baked this way they have a light, fresh flavor.

This is one of my favorites. You will need a large shallow pan that can go to the table. In Morocco the cooking is finished in a wide earthenware tagine which goes on top of the fire. Serve it with plenty of warm bread.

I love this Arab equivalent of shepherd’s pie.

This is a Moroccan version of a dish you find in many Middle Eastern countries. Serve with bread.

This intriguing layered dish with a delicious mix of textures and flavors is a specialty of the city of Hama in Syria.

Tagine barkok, made with or without honey, is one of the most popular fruit tagines of North Africa. It is eaten with bread. Restaurants in Paris accompany it with couscous and bowls of boiled chickpeas and boiled raisins (see page 377).

They call it the Tunisian cassoulet.