Big, gnarly fava bean pods are in season right now, just as winter gives way from cool nights to bright, warm days. Heaps of the greens loved in the Middle East appear in the shouks (Arabic word for market): peas, string beans, asparagus, and for a short while, these fresh fava beans.

Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.

Fresh beans are peeled twice: once when when you slide them out of their pods, and again when you squish each bean out from its rubbery covering. True; a little extra work. But it’s a restful task, and the soup is wonderfully herby, and redolent of green Springtime.

The preparation time listed relates to fresh beans. Frozen beans won’t need the peeling.

You’ll notice that the recipe calls for a fair amount of cilantro, but you can easily swap parsley for it if you prefer.

Fava Bean Soup Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups fresh or frozen fava bean pods
1 large leek, well washed and sliced ​​into thin rings (about 2 cups)
2 celery stalks sliced
2 carrots, sliced thinly
2 zucchini, diced
2 large potatoes, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
A bunch of coarsely chopped cilantro (about a cup)
8 cups/2 liters water or more as needed

Pull the strings off each pod and open it along the slit to expose the green beans. Use your thumbnail or a small knife. Push the beans out. Make a small cut in each bean, along the black stripe on its side, and squish it free of its sheath.

If using frozen beans, skip this step.
Heat olive oil in a deep pot over medium heat. Add the leeks, celery, carrots, zucchini and potatoes. Add turmeric, salt and black pepper, stir and let the vegetables cook gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add 8 cups of water, stir and bring to a boil. Cook, covered, for 45 minutes over medium heat until all the vegetables are tender.

Add the peeled fava beans, bring back to a boil and continue cooking for another 45 minutes. Check the soup once or twice: if necessary, add a little water.

Using a potato masher, mash the vegetables very coarsely.

Taste for seasoning and add a little more salt and pepper if needed.

Turn off the heat and add a bunch of finely chopped cilantro or parsley.
Serve right away, and enjoy.

Love fava beans and want another recipe? Try this fava bean Iranian salad

The post Fresh Fava Bean Soup, A Vegan Springtime Recipe appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Purim holiday is coming up next week: this year, 2026, it occurs from the evening of March 2nd until the evening of March 3rd. (In Jerusalem, where Shushan Purim is celebrated, the festival takes place on the following day, from March 3rd to March 4th.) Read about Purim and building a good society here.

There’s feasting at home on the night and the next day, and to make sure everyone gets good things to eat, families send out packages of treats to friends and neighbors. Traditional goodies are hamentaschen, and other treats like our chocolate nut clusters .

Now here’s another treat for sending around: a delicate nut-filled Moroccan pastry called Haman’s Fingers. It’s a sweet take on savory Moroccan cigars.

Haman’s Fingers
Yield: 20 rolled pastries

Pastry Ingredients
2 cups whole walnuts
2 cups whole almonds
½ cup sugar syrup (recipe below)
1 tsp orange blossom water (optional)
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp kosher salt
15 sheets of frozen phyllo pastry, thawed overnight in the refrigerator
1 stick (½ cup) melted butter

Syrup Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp orange blossom water or 1 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 orange

Directions

Remove the phyllo dough from the freezer to the fridge the night before starting. 2 hours before starting, remove the package from the fridge to room temperature. When ready to start, open the package and cover the phyllo with a damp towel or plastic wrap, to prevent drying out.

Make the syrup:
Bring water and sugar to a boil. Reduce the heat to a steady simmer and cook uncovered for 20-25 minutes, until syrup has reduced to about ⅔ cup. Add orange blossom water or lemon juice and orange zest. Set aside to cool.

Prepare the filling:
Place the walnuts and almonds in a food processor. Pulse until the texture resembles coarse crumbs, with some chunks.
Add ½ cup of the sugar syrup and the cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, salt, and optional orange blossom water. Pulse another couple of times until mixture comes together. Don’t overwork the filling; you don’t want a smooth paste, bu a mixture with some texture.

Roll the pastry:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Place a sheet of baking parchment on your work surface. Melt the butter (30 seconds in the microwave should do it) and set it aside to cool.
Place 1 sheet of phyllo on the baking parchment. Brush with melted butter. Place a second sheet over it, brush with butter. Do the same with a third sheet, finishing with brushed butter.
Roll the filling into a tube shape on a clean surface. Place it half an inch from the edge of the phyllo layers, on the long side. Carefully roll up the dough. Slice it into 4 pieces.
Transfer the cigars to the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining phyllo and filling.

Glaze the fingers:
Brush the finished cigars with more butter and then brush generously with syrup. There will be some syrup left for a final glazing.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden. Remove from oven and while still hot, brush with additional syrup to glaze.
Trim any filling that oozed out of the “fingers” off with a knife.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.

Recipe and photo via Chabad.org

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It’s late winter, almost spring in the Mediterranean, and the time to harvest wild greens is now. In a week or two, the best will be gone to seed, gotten leggy and tough, or infested with bugs.

I went out foraging for nettles, my favorite wild edible. I was aiming to make nettles dumplings, or as they’d be known in Italy, malfatti. See our other 5 ways to eat iron-rich nettles. And here we show inventive ways to make dumlings.

Malfatti means “badly formed,” and these dumplings, quickly shaped in the hand, have an awkward, rough look. Traditionally, spinach is the leafy ingredient, and the malfatti come out white speckled with green. These, based on nettles, are a rich, dark green.

I found this recipe in the late Leda Meredith’s book, “The Forager’s Feast.”

When I mention harvesting nettles to people who don’t forage, I get plenty of rolled eyes and the usual question: “Don’t you get stung, picking them?”

I do get stung. In my first years of picking nettles, I found that wearing gloves and taking scissors along was the way to deal with them.

Snip the stems and holding them with the scissor blades, put them down, all facing one way. That makes them easier to handle when rinsing them and hanging them up to dry.

But that was years ago. I pick nettles with bare hands now, and while I feel the sting, I don’t mind it anymore. Remember, all the sting goes away in the cooking. If you’re new to eating nettles and curious about their flavor, I’ll say that they don’t taste like spinach.

All wild greens are described as tasting like spinach, but the truth is that each has its distinctive taste, as with artichokes and lettuce, which are botanically related but taste nothing like each other. Nettles’s taste is dark, if you like, and a little salty; a little like seaweed.

This is how I learned to make delicious green malfatti. Like the ancient recipes that start, “First go out and catch a rabbit,” you need 4 ounces of raw, rinsed nettles that you went out and picked yourself.

Nettles Malfatti Recipe

Serves 2 as a main dish; 3-4 as a hot appetizer or side dish

Ingredients:

4 oz. – a tightly packed 1/2-cup of raw nettle leaves – stripped from the stems. My note: ignore any seeds present; they’re also excellent nutrition when young and green.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and chopped finely
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or more if liked
1/2 cup cup flour for rolling the malfatti in
About 1/2 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup grated extra Parmesan for saucing the malfatti

Instructions:

Blanch the nettles. Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil.

Drop the nettles in and cook for 3 minutes. I set the timer on my phone to avoid over-cooking. You’re only blanching the greens here.

Have ready a bowl of cold water. Remove the blanched nettles from the hot water with tongs or a slotted spoon and immediately drop them in the cold water. Let them sit for a minute or so or until cool.

Drain the nettles in a colander or sieve, and squeeze as much liquid out of them as possible by pushing them hard against the side of the colander. Do this over a bowl, to catch that dark-green juice. It’s tasty and sky-high full of nutrients. You can add it to soups or green smoothies later.

Coarsely chop the wad of squeezed-out nettles.

Empty the pot you boiled the nettles in. Pour the olive oil in and set it over medium heat to warm. (Leda’s tip for reducing the washing up by one pot).

Cook the onion in the oil until soft and translucent, stirring, 4-5 minutes.

Using the knife blade of a food processor, blend the onions and nettles together with the salt and pepper, eggs, breadcrumbs, and cheese until you have a coarse paste.

Scoop the nettles mixture into a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. I’ve let it mature as long as 24 hours.

Set a large pot of lightly salted water to boil.

Either flour a surface like a baking sheet with the 1/2-cup flour, or dump the flour into a wide bowl. Either way, flour your hands. You’ll need to flour your hands again at intervals.

Pinch off a generous tablespoon of the chilled dough and roll into a torpedo shape. Some prefer a nice round dumpling like a mazah ball; your choice. In either case, your palms will be green.

Roll each malfatti in the flour and set it aside on a floured surface while rolling the rest. If your bowl is wide enough, just place them around the inside and roll the rest of the malfatti in the flour heap in the center of the bowl.

Gently lower the malfatti into the water, which by now should be boiling. Don’t crowd the dumplings; they swell and need room to move. You’ll know they’re close to done when they rise and bob around. Cook them 4-5 minutes, no longer or they’ll break apart. You may need to do this in 2 batches.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the cooked malfatti to a platter or serving bowl.

Gently pour melted butter over the malfatti, and sprinkle with the extra grated Parmesan. Serve right away.

Some take malfatti to another level by baking them, cooked as described above, in a bechamel or a tomato sauce for 15 minutes at 350° F – 175°C. Sprinkle with more cheese before serving.

The post Make nettle dumplings, also known as nettles malfatti appeared first on Green Prophet.

Eyeing the mushrooms for sale in the local supermarket, I was intrigued to see shaggy, pearl-white Lion’s Mane mushrooms (H. erinaceus ). It’s not often found fresh, and is mostly used as a health supplement in capsule, powdered, or tincture form.

Traditional Chinese medicine has used it to improve memory and ability to withstand stress, and ease depression, for centuries. This could be helpful for women in menopause, to take just one population needing relief.

Western medicine has begun to recognize the benefits of Lion’s Mane mushrooms. Studies made on mice show tremendous potential for improving cognitive impairment, depression/anxiety, and other major ailments. This is attributed to the antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties of the mushroom.

Research so far has been limited, and mostly made on people with mild Alzheimer’s disease. Those studies show participants’ improved memory and mood after treatment with Lion’s Mane. Now a pilot study published in the National Library of Medicine presents a different angle: prevention of cognitive decline and health in older age by taking Lion’s Mane while still healthy.

Participants in the study were 41 healthy young adults, men and women, taking Lion’s Mane regularly over 28 days. They showed enhanced memory and improved mood, as well as more ability to withstand stress.

Laboratory mice treated with Lion’s Mane showed faster recovery from nerve injuries, protection against stomach ulcers, lower blood sugar, a healthier heart, higher immunities, improved memory and mood, and even cancer prevention.

Quite a list! Will Lion’s Mane mushrooms rise as the new miracle medicine? That’s something we won’t know until more extensive studies are done on humans.

Caveats: Lion’s mane mushroom might cause the immune system to become more active, which can be great in normal cirumstances such as during flu season. But this could increase the symptoms of auto-immune diseases.  According to WebMD, Lion’s Mane mushroom should be viewed with caution by people with these conditions:

Those with auto-immune disease such as multiple sclerosis (MS), lupus rheumatoid arthritis, pemphigus vulgaris (a skin condition), and others. If you have one of these conditions, it’s best to avoid using lion’s mane mushroom.

Patients taking anticoagulant/ antiplatelet drugs: Lion’s mane mushroom might slow blood clotting. This might increase the chances of bruising and bleeding in people with bleeding conditions.

Before surgery: Lion’s mane mushroom might slow blood clotting and reduce blood glucose levels. This might cause extra bleeding, and interfere with blood sugar control during and after surgery. Stop using lion’s mane mushroom at least 2 weeks before a scheduled surgery.

Before a transplant: The strength of immunosuppressants – medications that decrease the immune system – may be weakened by Lion’s Mane.

Diabetics taking medications: Lion’s mane mushroom might lower blood sugar levels. Taking lion’s mane mushroom along with diabetes medications might cause blood sugar to crash.

Now let’s assume that all is well and you want to taste the famous mushroom fresh. Lion’s Mane are hard to grow. To get them fresh, you had to either forage them yourself – assuming you were in the correct, humid forest conditions – or order them from specialty farmers.

I tried growing Lion’s Mane mushrooms myself, out of a kit, but alas – my kitchen window didn’t offer the right conditions. So I was excited to bring some of those Lion’s Mane mushrooms home. I’d have to eat a measured amount of the mushroom on a daily basis to benefit from its medicinal properties, but I wasn’t set up to conduct scientific research in the kitchen; I was set up to conduct culinary research, with my skillet, some good olive oil, and my appetite. I wonder – could we beat cogitive decline by eating Lion’s Mane mushrooms cooked in olive oil?

I chose a simple recipe that allows the umami-rich flavor of the mushroom to shine, without masking it by adding lots of herbs, cream, or other ingredients. This makes 2 appetizers. It may be doubled or tripled.

Enjoy!

Photo of sauteed Lion’s Mane mushrooms via acouplecooks.

The post Lion’s Mane Mushroom Recipe appeared first on Green Prophet.

This is a luxurious recipe that requires a taste for exotic flavors, and willingness to see it through its stages. It’s based on the dark meat of chicken, not an expensive ingredient, yet makes a luscious, aromatic, festive dish. With fried onions, almonds and raisins to garnish, it’s divine; a savory feast with little pops of sweetness from the raisins, piled onto a platter of golden rice.

Mandi expresses the sensuous craft of Middle Eastern cooks who take traditional ingredients to their fullest delicious potential. For the adventurous Western cook, it’s worth buying the spices needed here, not only for this one recipe, but because once you’ve savored them, you’ll want to cook with them again and again.

Start by assembling the spices for the Hawaij spice blend (ingredients listed below). Toast them briefly in a dry skillet, then crush them to a powder in a coffee or spice grinder. Marinate the chicken pieces in a paste of Hawaij, turmeric, salt and olive oil. Leave the well-massaged chicken in the fridge overnight optimally – although in a pinch, 1 hour will do.

About 2 hours before you intend to serve, proceed to the next stages. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the instructions: they’re all simple steps. Follow the recipe in the order laid out below for greatest ease.

You will need an electric spice grinder; if none available, use powdered spices (not traditional but more realistic ); a skillet, a large pot, and a rack that fits into the pot for steaming the chicken. The author suggest using a wire trivet such as those that come with instant pots, if no other rack available. You’ll also need a baking tray and if possible, a rack to fit over it.

Now serve this luscious dish to people you love.

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Imagine a pancake stuffed with sweet cheese. You may dream that the pancake’s filled with nuts, instead. Then imagine it was drizzled with perfumed syrup while still warm. Garnish it, in your dream, with pistachios and whipped cream. You’re dreaming of qatayef, the fabulous, fabled, Arabian dessert.

Qatayef – also spelled katayif or qatya’if – is traditionally eaten at Ramadan (get our Ramadan vegetarian ideas here), but it’s a treat anytime. In fact, it’s a treat that’s gone through history.

A recipe for qatayif appears in a tenth century Arabic cookbook by the writer Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, who compiled recipes going back to the eighth and ninth centuries. People have been eating qatayif for a very long time.

The filled pancakes are still popular in the Middle East. All over the Levant, people buy qatayif from bakeries and pastry shops, or pick some up from street vendors. They can even buy them frozen and ready to fry at home. So can you; if not at a local Middle Eastern grocery store, then online.

But there’s nothing like home-made, although it does take some time and patience. Plan to cook qatayif on a free morning, or when you need to put your mind on something with gratifying results.

First, make the batter. Choose a nut stuffing or a sweet cheese one (recipes below). Or halve each recipe and have both kinds.

Eat, and drift off to qatayif heaven.

Photos by Laila Ibrahim via Serious Eats.

The post Simple Qatayef recipe makes fabulous nut-filled pancakes appeared first on Green Prophet.

For an easy, luscious appetizer, wrap a semi-firm white cheese like Brie or feta in grapevine leaves and bake or grill it. It’s a delicious way to make the most of a few grapevine leaves left in the jar after you made mushrooms cooked in grapevine leaves or grilled fish..

The cheese becomes subtly flavored with an earthy, tangy note from the leaves and olive oil. Then there’s the wow factor when you unwrap the cheese and reveal the soft, spicy feta, or release the gooey, luscious Brie from the toasty grape leaves.

As always when cooking brined grapevine leaves, first rinse, then drain them, and pat dry. Snip off any stiff stem pieces.

First, the fluffy grilled feta…

And here’s your melty, rich baked Brie…

Photo of feta cheese on vine leaves via BBC Food.

Photo of Brie wrapped in vine leaves by Alexandra Tran via Unsplash.

The post Feta and Brie Cooked in Grapevine Leaves appeared first on Green Prophet.

Grapevine leaves are usually thought of as wraps or savory little parcels stuffed with rice and/or meat. But as our previous post on fish grilled in grapevine leaves shows, the leaf of the grape is more versatile than that.

This recipe is said to have originated in France. I can’t guarantee it did, but  a dish like this one logically evolves wherever mushrooms and vineyards thrive in the same local. The tangy, woodsy flavor of the grapevine leaves complements the earthy mushrooms. Olive oil and garlic are natural added ingredients. You’ll be wafted to the Mediterranen when you lift the leaf cover and the irresistible aroma rises.

A jar of grapevine leaves in brine makes cooking quick and easy if you can’t get fresh leaves. Make sure to extract the leaves gently from the jar, because the brine makes them fragile. Although you’re not filling and rolling them, as in Iraqi stuffed grape leaves, you may want the unused leaves to make dolamades some time later.

You’ll need a shallow baking dish with either a tightly fitting lid or foil to cover the dish well.

The leaves covering the mushrooms will be dark and crunchy. If you cooked this with fresh grapevine leaves, they will be tender enough to eat, and tasty.

Any remaining cooking juices can be added to a sauce, poured over steamed vegetables or stirred into mashed potatoes.

Photos by Miriam Kresh

The post Recipe: Mushrooms Cooked in Grapevine Leaves appeared first on Green Prophet.

If you’ve only ever eaten grapevine leaves as dolmades, you’ll be surprised to learn that those tangy grape leaves add luxurious flavor to a variety of other dishes.

You’re lucky if you have access to a green, growing grapevine in the spring, when you can pick the fresh leaves and process them at home. It’s easy enough. Just a matter of blanching them briefly in boiling water, then cold. You’ll have the satisfaction of successful foraging.

But say you have a yen for stuffed grape leaves and it’s way past the season for picking. You can forage the leaves, already preserved in brine, at your local grocery store. Here’s our Iraqi Stuffed Grape Leaves recipe for starters.

Keep a jar of grape leaves in the pantry for inspiration. Go vegan, or not. Choose to wrap cheese, or mushrooms, or fish in grapevine leaves. We’re offering you the first in a series of grape vine leaf-inspired recipes to brighten meals any time: grilled fish in vine leaves, then dipped in a spicy-hot, herby sauce. The fish is marinated for an hour in a coriander-based chermoula dressing.

Note: the chilli sauce is also wonderful with our chicken-stuffed mulberry leaves, which our editor Karin kitchen-tested and loved.)

Recipe and photo from Recipes From A Moroccan Kitchen by Ghillie Bașan.

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Locust invasions once seemed like a relic of ancient or faraway crises — the stuff of Bible stories or news from Africa and the Middle East. Over the years, we’ve chronicled grim scenes in Yemen and Egypt, and even spotlighted creative survival strategies (like the recipes of chef Moshe Basson) turning locusts from scourge to sustenance. But what was once viewed as someone else’s problem may now creep into British backyards.

In August 2025, a gardener in Cornwall spotted an Egyptian locust (Anacridium aegyptium) in their garden — a rare find in the UK. The Cornwall Wildlife Trust confirmed the sighting, noting that such insects are typically native to the Mediterranean and North Africa according to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Experts believe this locust was carried north by the same meteorological system that deposited Saharan dust across Cornwall. While one or two migrant locusts reach Britain each year, climate shifts could make the UK more welcoming to non-native species in the years ahead and this worries ecologists and farmers. The trust said the species were thought to arrive on the strong winds from the south east, adding it was likely the locust arrived on the same wind “that’s dumping Saharan dust on our cars overnight”.

The Cornwall Trust urges residents to report unusual insect sightings, helping build a picture of new species’ movements and possible ecological impacts.

The idea of locusts sweeping across the region is not hyperbole — history bears it out:

• Between 2019 and 2022, enormous swarms of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) devastated parts of East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Middle East, threatening crops and food security across 23 countries.

• In Yemen, conflict weakened agricultural monitoring systems, making the country a key breeding ground. Efforts supported by the FAO and other partners managed to control infestations over tens of thousands of hectares according to the World Bank.

These episodes show how quickly locusts can transform from scattered pests into regional plagues, especially when conditions align in their favor — heat, rainfall after drought, and weak surveillance systems.

What This Means for the UK and the world?

So why should a single locust in Cornwall matter? Because it might be a harbinger of climate change and shifting weather patterns. Warmer, drier extremes and stronger winds can help migratory insects push further north. A recent study links increased locust outbreaks to climate anomalies like heavier rainfall and wind patterns.

Locusts are known for their gregarious transformation: under crowded conditions and favorable environments, solitary locusts morph into swarming hordes, dramatically increasing their threat.  If the UK becomes more hospitable—warmer summers, longer dry periods—such migrant insects may find it easier to survive and reproduce beyond occasional stragglers.

If locusts concern you, read about the devastating locust plague in Africa in 2020, and tips for getting rid of the plague.

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