Quick

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

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

Grilled chicken on skewers is part of the Arab kebab-house and restaurant trade. The flavoring here is Lebanese. Look at the variations for alternatives, and be careful not to overcook, as chicken pieces dry out quickly. Leg meat remains juicier than breast meat.

This is a quick and simple way of cooking chicken.

The combination of chicken or meat with dates is very ancient in the Arab world. This recipe is inspired by a Moroccan one. I made it with baby partridge, which was delicious. You could also use small guinea hens or poussins. Use soft dried dates.

Every year, migrating quails fly over the Mediterranean to Alexandria. Hundreds of the small birds fall, exhausted, on the dunes of the beaches of Agami, to be caught in large nets and collected in baskets. They are plucked and cleaned and marinated in a rich sauce, then grilled on the beaches over numerous little fires. Now quail farms are an important part of the local economy. Broiled quail are also a specialty of Lebanese restaurants, where they are served as mezze. The flavorings here are those of Alexandria.

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

A Greek way of cooking mussels.

A Moroccan way with shrimp that is quick to do and really delicious. If you buy the shrimp frozen, let them thaw in the refrigerator before peeling.

This can be served as a first course or a main dish. It has a deliciously fresh tomato flavor with a touch of cinnamon.

A favorite Egyptian flavoring is a mix of fried garlic and coriander. This dish is a specialty of Alexandria, where it is usually baked in a clay dish called a tagen (it is deeper than Moroccan tagines and with straight sides). You can make it with any white fish—steaks or fillets. Serve it with plain rice (page 338) or rice with vermicelli (page 340).

A North African—particularly Libyan—specialty. Algerians call the piquant sauce chetitha. The dish is not for everybody, and it is not for a delicate fish.

Preserved lemon and olives are a favorite combination for fish dishes in Morocco and other North African countries.

Algerians serve deep-fried Dover sole over a bed of shakshouka, but other flat fish, such as lemon or gray sole or flounder, are excellent with the sautéed Mediterranean vegetables— and they can be broiled.

For this delightful and simple Moroccan dish, use fish fillets—monkfish or any firm-fleshed fish such as bream, turbot, haddock, cod—and have them skinned.

Tarator is the name used in different countries for sauces made with a variety of nuts. This sharp, garlicky one with pine nuts belongs to Syria and Lebanon. In Egypt it was served at grand buffet parties, where whole fish were entirely covered with it. For this simpler version you may use any white fish—fillets or steaks.

This Turkish specialty, popular throughout most of the Middle East, makes a good first course or cold buffet dish. Sliced swordfish is generally used, but most fish available in America are also suitable.

Pan-cooking with the famous marinade is the simplest and quickest way of preparing a Moroccan-style fish dish.

Small skate, tender enough to fry quickly, should be used for this Tunisian dish. The wings are bought already dressed from the fishmonger.