5 Ingredients or Fewer

Chicory is one of the vegetables believed to have been eaten in ancient Egypt. It has a pleasant, slightly bitter taste when it is cooked. In this Lebanese mountain dish, wild chicory is used.

The combination of spinach with chickpeas is common throughout the Middle East, but the flavors here are Egyptian. You may use good-quality canned chickpeas. It is good served with yogurt.

Serve with salad.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

Serve with potatoes.

This Lebanese specialty is served as an appetizer, but it is also good as a main course accompanied by mashed potatoes. Calf’s liver has a better flavor and texture, so use it if you can.

This dish is loved all over the Middle East and in the Balkans for its rich, gelatinous texture. It is sometimes served as a soup. Christians also use pig’s trotters. Serve with bread and a light salad.

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.

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.

This is a quick and simple way of cooking chicken.

You can buy tamarind paste (page 46) from Middle Eastern stores. Serve the scallops as an appetizer accompanied with a leaf salad.

Red mullet is so highly rated it is called Sultan Ibrahim in the Arab world. In Turkey it is called barbunya. In this dish, which is simple to make and beautiful to offer, grape leaves keep the fish moist and impart a delicate flavor. You may use fresh or preserved leaves. If the grape leaves are fresh, scald them in boiling water for a moment or two, until they flop, then dip them quickly in cold water so as to preserve their color. If they are preserved in brine, soak them in hot water for 1/2 hour to remove the salt, changing the water once, then rinse them.

An elegant and tasty omelet. Use the frozen artichoke bottoms from Egypt which you can find in Middle Eastern stores, or hearts, which are more common in supermarkets.

This Tunisian specialty is easy to make and quite delicious.

This is an Egyptian favorite.

This is the common all-purpose dressing for fish. It can also be used as a marinade.

This makes a lovely snack meal. Merguez are spicy North African sausages. If you cannot find them, you can substitute hot Cajun or Creole sausages.

This is one of my favorites.

This simple herby omelet is particularly delicious. Use a good-quality feta cheese, or try another cheese. It can serve as a main dish or an appetizer.