Ramadan

This is an Egyptian favorite.

Cardamom gives a delicate Arab touch to this substantial Egyptian omelet which can be served as a main dish.

A dish of Tunisian origin that is eaten in most Middle Eastern countries, it makes an ideal snack meal. There are many versions. I like this one, called “nablia,” which is a specialty of Nabeul.

This Turkish way of embellishing poached eggs is also good with fried eggs.

This Egyptian feast-day soup which is eaten seventy days after Ramadan is made of the leftover meat and bones of a sacrificial lamb. It is the custom to slay a lamb in the name of God, and to distribute the meat among the poor. The family of the donor must eat some of the lamb in order to benefit from the sacrifice, and this soup is a good way of doing so.

A measure of the importance of soups (ash) in Iran is that a cook is called an ash-paz, which means “maker of soup.” This substantial soup with a great mix of beans makes a good winter meal. In Iran it is served with bread and bunches of fresh herbs such as cress, mint, cilantro, and also scallions, radishes, and pickles. It is the type of soup you will find in the bazaar at the earliest hours of the morning, dished out for breakfast from huge cauldrons in which a sheep’s head and feet have given their special richness, and where all the vegetables in season find their place.

This is the much-loved national soup of Morocco. During the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset, the smell permeates the streets as every household prepares its own version to be eaten when the sound of the cannon signals the breaking of the fast at sunset. It is eaten with dates and honeyed cakes. A particular feature is the way it is given what is described in Morocco as a “velvety” touch by stirring in a yeasty batter or simply flour mixed with water.

A specialty of the city of Shiraz. The herb fenugreek, called shanbalileh, gives the soup a very pleasant, slightly bitter flavor. It is not easy to find fresh. Chopped walnuts add texture.

This is one of my favorite soups from Egypt.

This soup is popular in Egypt, where sick and convalescing people are encouraged to eat it to regain their health. It is plain but delicate in flavor, and highly nutritious, made with the same large fava beans as ta’amia (page 61), sold without their skins (they are a pale cream without their brown skins).

This tangy, aromatic soup was a family favorite in Egypt. The strong taste of lemon is the main feature. It was usually served over rice.

With this fresh-tasting and aromatic Egyptian soup, it is best to cook the rice separately and add it just before serving, as it gets bloated and soft if it stands in the soup.

This is a very famous and very tasty Lebanese soup made with large brown lentils.

Melokheya is Egypt’s most popular national dish. It is an ancient peasant soup which is believed to be portrayed in pharaonic tomb paintings. It seemed to us as children that the fellahin (peasants) wore the same clothes, used the same tools, and repeated the same movements as did the figures working the land in pharaonic tomb paintings. Every peasant, however poor, had a little patch of ground for his own use, and in summer this was reserved exclusively for the cultivation of the deep-green melokheya leaf (Corchorus olitorius—in English, Jew’s mallow). The women prepared the soup daily in large pots which they carried to the fields on their heads for the men to eat at midday. When the work was done and the men came home, they ate it again at dusk. For many years, when we were relatively new in England, the leaves were very hard to find, and we hankered desperately for the soup. Some relatives of mine in Milan tried to grow the plant (it looks a bit like spinach) in the garden of their apartment building. After weeks of effort—getting the seeds (the same seeds were found in pharaonic tombs), planting them, watering, nurturing, harvesting—they invited a group of compatriots to eat the soup. The triumphant cook was horrified to find that the leaves she thought she had so lovingly raised were only local weeds. The melokheya had failed to grow. Everybody from Egypt adores melokheya, which has a mucilaginous, glutinous quality imparted by the leaves. But be warned: it is an acquired taste. There are various ways of eating it in several stages, and each is something of a ritual. The soup may be eaten first with plain rice (that is how I like it—pure and simple), or with fried or toasted Arab bread; then with portions of the chicken or meat which was used for making the stock. Or you can serve it all together in many layers on the plate. In either case, it represents an entire meal. The layers may start with pieces of toasted bread at the bottom of the plate, but usually begin with rice, topped with a piece of chicken or meat, over which the soup is poured. Recently the Lebanese custom of sprinkling chopped onion steeped in vinegar on top has been adopted by some Egyptians. In Egypt they use chicken, rabbit, goose, duck, or meat stock to make the soup. Many years ago I was employed in England to make the soup using a famous brand of bouillon cube for a television advertisement. Years later, when I went back to Cairo for the first time, I spied it being shown on television in a crowded café between episodes of “Dallas.” You are not likely to find fresh melokheya, but dried and frozen varieties are available from Middle Eastern stores. The frozen one is best. A lot of garlic is used in a sauce called takleya which goes in at the end, but it does not seem like too much when you eat.

Lentil soup is an Egyptian favorite. You can buy it in the street from vendors. When I went back once during the fasting month of Ramadan, I was wandering through a long market street and stopped in a tiny café. There was only one table and I was the only customer, and all they had to offer was lentil soup. They must have been Copts. They served me in great style, offering me all kinds of extra garnishes—scallions, lemons, toasted pita croutons—rushing out to buy each one, after each new demand, from the stalls outside, then preparing them in front of me at the table. There is no harm in making the soup in advance—even a day before.

Lebanese restaurants serve these cut in wedges as appetizers. A whole bread accompanied by a salad makes a good snack meal. Use a thin type of Arab or pita bread with a pouch.

A Syrian and Lebanese specialty.

These little triangular-shaped pies are a famous Lenten specialty of the Orthodox Christian communities of Syria and Lebanon. You can serve them hot or cold. They are meant to be tart and lemony. The filling must not be wet or the dough will get soft and will stick to the baking sheet and tear when it is baked. For this reason it is best to use frozen spinach, squeezed dry.

In Lebanon the turnovers with meat are the most prestigious, but we in Egypt always made cheese ones. No tea party was ever right without them. The recipe for the dough has been passed down in my family for generations as “1 coffee cup of oil, 1 coffee cup of melted butter, 1 coffee cup of warm water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and work in as much flour as it takes.” We baked the pies, but it was also common to fry them in oil.

This rich Tunisian pie makes an interesting main dish.