White fish stew is a healthier variation of meat stew and very tasty when treated Persian-style! There are all kinds of delicious Middle East recipes to choose from on Green Prophet, but not so many from the Persian kitchen. Guest blogger Dave Bishop sent this in and we just had to share. A true Iranian delicacy, […]
Fresh, green fava beans appear in the Middle East for just a few weeks. Eat them as they are or accent another vegetable with them. Those fat, ungainly-looking pods conceal a fleeting vegetable delicacy: fresh fava beans. Maybe it’s a good thing that the season for them is so short – it makes the work […]
Thorns and thistles make delicious eating if you know know Middle-Eastern ways to cook them. Snooping around the open-air market in my town, I was glad to see thistles and thorns piled up on the wooden stands. (See our post about Israeli open-air markets.) Spiky artichokes and bristly cardoons, to be exact. If you’re looking […]
Make your own chocolate treats with this easy sweet recipe. Valentine’s Day is behind us, but love of chocolate lingers (see our post on why Fair-Trade or organic chocolate is the ethical way to indulge). These rich mouthfuls have no added sugar and are packed with chocolatey goodness – a real slow-food dessert (like our […]
Put up a tomato confit on your next day at home. Yes, fresh tomatoes are but a dream in frozen Northern countries right now. But here in the Middle East, hot house tomatoes are abundant and surprisingly inexpensive. I had six fat ones on my kitchen counter, just at the cusp between very ripe and […]
A fine Mideast winter dish with protein-rich lentils and comforting noodles. According to author of The Book of Middle Eastern Food Claudia Rodin, flour noodles have been known here since ancient times and owe nothing to Italian pasta recipes. It’s pasta all the same, but known in the Middle East as rishta, from the Persian […]
Piquant with booze and naturally sweet, these grilled oranges are a quick, sophisticated dessert for a winter dinner. It’s still officially winter in the Middle East, although spring is making a premature appearance with warm, windy days and scanty rain. Orange trees shed their heady fragrance over sidewalks and gardens, while open-air markets display piles […]
The sweetly named carob tree produces a fruit that can be used as a chocolate substitute. Its cultivation is less harmful to the environment and it can made into syrups, desserts, spreads, toffees, drinks or used as a sweetener.
Enjoy this fruity bulgur salad at your Tu B’Shvat seder. Rabbi Judah, a sage who lived in the 2nd century, said that wheat – not an apple – was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The stalks of wheat in the Garden of Eden were thought to have been “as tall as the cedars […]
Classic Lebanese recipes for a tiny token price. Green Prophet has covered at least a dozen recipes from Lebanon. And now the LebGuide site is featuring a culinary opportunity — 100 classic Lebanese recipes you can download to your iPod or iPhone for $1.00. Very delicious! You must download iTunes in order to download the recipes. […]
Miriam offers three recipes for the liquorice-flavored fennel. From spring to the onset of fall, wild fennel Ferula communis waves feathery leaves and bright yellow flowers in open fields all over Israel. The aromatic seed-like fruit are sometimes used as seasonings (read about uses for fennel seeds in Part II of our spice medicines series). […]
Once considered an aphrodisiac drink, true sahlab is now becoming rarer. Sahlab, based on an increasingly rare orchid, is a popular winter drink all over the Levant, like hot almond milk. The tubers of Orchis macula are boiled, dried, then ground to a gray powder that, cooked in milk, makes a creamy drink something like […]
Green Prophet’s new writer Rebecca shares her personal experience raising 5 female goats. She shares an easy goat cheese recipe too! The first goats arrived to our garden by chance. Our friends needed to get rid of their goats urgently as their neighbours were complaining about the baahing. We weren’t sure what that meant, but […]
Cook up a potful of fresh spinach soup for healthy winter comfort food. Or add tofu and it works as a whole meal in the summer. Cool, moist weather makes winter prime season for leafy greens in the Middle East, and spinach is one of Green Prophet’s favorites. As with our creamy eggplant soup, it’s […]
Fancy a hot snack? Try sambusak. If you suddenly need a nosh while browsing an open-air market (like one of these shouks), look around. You’re sure to find a sambusak stand where hungry shoppers are buying these hot, spicy pastries. These popular turnovers also appear at wedding buffets and fancy hotel receptions. Made at home, […]