Onion

The dish derives its name from the Arabic word for apricot—mishmish. Only a tart natural—not sweetened—dried or semi-dried variety will do. Fresh apricots may also be used, in which case they should be added at the end and cooked for a few minutes only, so that they don’t fall apart. The reason why there is fresh gingerroot rather than the ground spice which is usual in Morocco is that the recipe comes from Paris. Serve with bread.

Recipes for meat cooked in yogurt abound in medieval Arabic cookery manuals, where the dish was called madira. As early as the tenth century, the Arab writer Badia’z Zaman wrote a tale entitled “Al Madirya” about the dish. Such dishes are still popular in the Arab world. The name of this Lebanese version, which means “his mother’s milk,” implies that the meat of a young animal is cooked in its own mother’s milk. It can be made with chunks of meat or lamb shanks. Serve with plain rice (page 337) or rice with vermicelli (page 340).

A quick and simple dish to be served with rice, bulgur, or potatoes, or with bread.

This dish is uniquely Turkish, and was developed in the Ottoman palace kitchens. A current legend surrounding the name of the dish, which means “sultan’s delight,” places it in 1869, when the Sultan Abdul Aziz entertained Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, in his white rococo palace of Beylerbey, on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The Empress was ecstatic about the creamy eggplant sauce which served as the bed for a stew and asked for the recipe to be sent to her cooks. The Sultan’s cook explained that he could not give the recipe, because he “cooked with his eyes.” Serve it with rice.

A homely Egyptian dish using beef. Serve with rice or potatoes.

Meats grilled on skewers have become the best-known Middle Eastern foods as the standard fare of Lebanese, Turkish, and Iranian restaurants abroad. They are a symbol, in particular, of Turkish food. Turks say that this way of cooking meat was created during the conquering era of the Ottoman Empire, when Turkish soldiers, forced to camp out in tents for months on end, discovered the pleasures of eating meat grilled out of doors on wood fires. Twenty years ago, on a gastronomic visit to Turkey, I went with an interpreter on an arranged tour of kebab houses in Istanbul. At every stop I was invited to eat. It became a grand marathon—une grande bouffe. At the fifth establishment they opened the refrigerated room and showed me all the prize cuts, which were later presented to me straight from the fire on a gigantic plate. As well as the kebabs and ground-meat kofta kebab on skewers, there were small lamb chops, kidneys, slices of calf’s liver, beef steaks, sucuk (spicy beef sausages), and pieces of chicken. It was a gourmand’s dream, but for a woman already satiated from eating elsewhere and afraid of giving offense, it was a nightmare. In Greece and Turkey, alternating pieces of onion, tomato, and bell pepper are threaded onto the skewers in between the cubes of meat. This looks good, but it is not a good idea, as the meat and vegetables take different times to cook and the meat becomes wet and does not get properly seared. So, if you must have roasted vegetables, have them on another skewer, or straight on the grill. In some countries, lumps of fat are pressed between pieces of meat to keep them from drying out as the fat melts.

A Turkish specialty. The meat becomes so tender you can pull pieces off with your fingers.

In Egypt this is the favorite kebab. It is also mine. I love the soft, moist texture of the meat, and the flavors of parsley and onion. The traditional way of preparing it is to chop all the main ingredients by hand, then to chop them together. They still do this in restaurants (where it is called kofta kebab or kofta alla shish)—but you can achieve good results with the blade of the food processor if you do each ingredient separately. For a moist, juicy kofta you need a good amount of fat. Most of it will melt away in the heat of the broiler. You will need skewers with a wide, thick blade to hold the ground meat and prevent it from rolling around. If you find it difficult, you can always shape the meat into burgers.

My aunt Latifa and uncle Mousa lived in a villa in a suburb of Cairo. It was large and housed their extended family. There was no oven. Much of the cooking was done over a mangal (portable outdoor grill) and a Primus oil heater, and trays were sent off daily to the baker to be cooked in the bread oven. This dish was sent to the baker.

Fesenjan is a famous Persian sauce for rice with stewed duck. I love the sauce, which has a special sweet-and-sour flavor from pomegranate molasses (rob-e nar), but I don’t like stewed duck, so I roast the duck instead.

The last time I ate this famous Moroccan dish was in a restaurant in Paris where there was an evening of Arab poetry and tales accompanied by musicians. It was not the best example of the dish, but I always find it enjoyable. I love the special flavor of preserved lemons. At every vegetable market in North Africa, and now also in the south of France, you can see stalls laden with huge piles of soft lemons oozing with juice beside several varieties of olives. The two are often used together. The pulp of the preserved lemon is discarded, and the skin alone is used. The word mqualli alludes to the way the chicken is cooked, with oil and only a little water.

In Morocco they say that this dish, like many others, was brought back from Andalusia by the Moors after the Reconquista.

A magnificent dish, and a stunning example of the way Moroccans mix savory and sweet. Chicken pieces are first stewed with lemon juice and saffron, then baked with a topping of almonds and honey.

A Turkish dish in which yogurt, an important feature in Turkish cooking, is flavored with cardamom and ginger.

An Egyptian delicacy.

Many years ago, hearing of her prestigious cooking, I went to see a woman in Casablanca. She received me in a pale-blue kaftan on a patio with turquoise-and-cobalt mosaics. She explained that her family was from Fez and that her cooking was Fassi, which is reputedly the most refined regional cuisine of Morocco. She had three cooks working for her, but when she had guests, even only one or two, she said she spent at least six hours cooking in the kitchen herself. I asked if there were ways of shortening the cooking times. She said no. Her daughter, who was studying law in the States, interrupted: “Yes, there are shortcuts, you don’t have to take that long.” Her mother was deeply offended. Were all those years that she had spent in the kitchen to please her family a waste, then? Were all her efforts to make things exquisite of little value? We cannot, of course, aspire to the extraordinary refinements of the grand family kitchens of Morocco, but we can achieve quite delicious results without much trouble. One of the recipes the lovely lady gave me was for pigeons stuffed with couscous. When she had a party, she prepared a huge mountain of couscous and covered it with little pigeons, shining and golden in their honey sauce. This is an extremely easy version of the grand dish. Using quick-cooking couscous makes it easy. You can double the number of pigeons for a dinner party, but then you will need more large saucepans.

A Turkish delicacy. A humble fish for a regal occasion. The skin of the fish is stuffed with its own flesh mixed with a rich filling. It is rolled in beaten egg, then in flour and breadcrumbs, and deep-fried in olive or nut oil. It is quite a bit of work but is delicious eaten hot or cold, as an entrée or as a main dish.

One of the happiest memories of my childhood in Cairo is the outings in the company of several uncles, aunts, and cousins to an old restaurant called Le Café des Pigeons on the way to the Pyramids, where we feasted on charcoal-broiled baby pigeons. Huge platters, piled high with halved pigeons sprinkled with lemon juice and parsley, were brought to us in the ancient gardens of the restaurant, overgrown with jasmine and bougainvillea. The birds were so young and tender we could eat them bones and all. Mediterranean pigeons are like squabs. You can also use poussins (small spring chickens) in the same way. They are best grilled over dying embers, where they acquire a most seductive flavor and aroma, but you can also cook them indoors, over the heat of a pumice-stone rock grill or under the broiler. Serve them with salad and pita bread.

In Cairo a few years ago, I was invited to dinner by a woman who was living alone in the family villa after her parents had died. While she spent a month in hospital with her sick mother, squatters had built dwellings in the large garden. By now it was a few years since they had settled in, and she couldn’t get them out because of delays in the legal process. But I think she was lonely and had got used to them and was not trying too hard. The squatters had built a clay oven, and a dovecote where they kept pigeons; and chickens were running around. They grew all kinds of vegetables and herbs and gave her some of the produce. She watched their daily antics, noting that, while they quarreled all the time, the pigeons were loving and faithful towards each other. While her cook was preparing stuffed pigeons and minty broad beans with artichoke hearts for us, we watched the squatters cook their pigeons on the grill together with slices of eggplant and onion. Her recipe is one of my favorites. You will need the coarse bulgur, available from Greek and Middle Eastern stores. For a large and varied meal, you can serve half a bird per person. There is a large amount of stuffing because people like to have more on the side. Stuffed pigeon is one of the delicacies of Egypt, which you serve, as they say, “if you really want to show somebody you love them.” The stuffing is most commonly rice or ferik (young green wheat), but bulgur is an easier and delicious alternative.

This is very popular in Syria and Lebanon and can be served cold with salads such as tabbouleh (page 76) or hot with rice.