Notes about Recipes in this book

• Creamy pepper and pastirma braise

  • mcvl on July 30, 2011

    The flavors here were wonderful, but I had a texture problem because I used strips of long green pepper rather than dice -- the skins from the peppers turned leathery and unappetizing. Next time I'd carefully fish out the pepper skins before serving the dish, counting the number of pepper strips I use, or I'd follow the original recipe and dice the peppers rather than cutting them into strips.

• Roast chicken with pine nut and barberry pilaf stuffing

  • mcvl on September 02, 2011

    1 September 2011 Made with whole frozen cranberries rather than barberries (good substitution) and all pine nuts instead of pine nuts and rice (too carby) -- outstanding. I can roast chicken perfectly now, I just cook it upside down. There are dents across the breast, but so what, it's juicy and succulent.

• The Fish Doctor's stew - with black pepper, lemon peel and mint

  • mcvl on September 01, 2011

    31 August 2011 This is amazing. I made it with chunks of four different fish (snapper, sole, cod, and sockeye) and fish broth rather than chicken broth. The richness and depth of flavor were to die for -- the combination of exactly the right herbs and spices. A permanent addition to my repertoire of fish stews.

• Warm shredded lamb's tongue salad with pickled lebanese cucumbers, celery and lemon-mint dressing

  • mziech on April 30, 2013

    This salad is ok, but was not impressed by the flavor of the lamb tongue which is first poached with vegetables en needs to stay overnight in the cooking liquid. Salad ingredients were nice, but the whole recipe needs some extra kick.

• Hummus with spiced marinated lamb and pine nuts

  • pfgarden on March 27, 2011

    Excellent, I love this recipe

• Haloumi, crème fraîche and spinach pizzas

  • pfgarden on March 27, 2011

    Topping has lovely flavour, though next time I would double the haloumi and creme fraiche. Base is excellent.

• Confit salmon tarator with coriander, walnuts and tahini sauce

  • aargle on June 04, 2013

    My girlfriend cooked this for us. It was a memorable meal. Absolutely delicious

• Swirls with Kahlua (Ma'amoul)

  • Melanie on March 06, 2012

    Made these in a masterclass with Malouf himself. End result was great but I'm not sure if I would have the patience do it at home - the date filling had already been prepared for us and involved blanching/skinning/deseeding the dates... suggested alternative was a combination of cooked apple, dried apple, cinnamon and turkish apple tea. Will try that version as the I loved the biscuits.

• Zghorta-style kibbeh patties stuffed with cinnamon and pine-nut butter

  • Melanie on June 01, 2014

    These are a bit fiddly to make but the end result is well worth it.

• Yogurt pastry

  • Melanie on June 23, 2013

    Made this pasty for the 'lamb and pine nut borek' recipe. Pastry was a little temperamental, couldn't roll it to the required thickness / size as it teared. However, the end result was still a good tasty pastry - uses the zest of half a lemon, and the lemon coupled with the yoghurt and butter makes a delicious casing.

• Lamb and pine nut börek

  • Melanie on June 23, 2013

    Delicious filling - the recipe and ingredients list completely misses the pine nuts but I added some in anyway. I made a double recipe and ended up needing a batch of the yoghurt pastry and a quantity of bread dough for all of the filling as the pastry was a bit temperamental. Good level of spice.

• Breakfast bread (Barberi)

  • Melanie on March 06, 2012

    Easy to put together - knead dough in mixer and allow to rise for about 2 hours. Then quickly shape and throw in oven for about 10 minutes. Good to serve with dips.

• Shiraz salad (Salad-e Shirazi)

  • Melanie on March 06, 2012

    Made this salad in a masterclass with Malouf himself. Very impressive salad visually - blew me away. Also tastes great and there is a lovely mix of textures. Dress salad at last minute - use of salt and pepper is key.

• Persepolis onion soup with soft-poached eggs (Eshkeneh)

  • meggan on November 09, 2012

    Delicious - the seasoning is perfect and it is simple to make.

• Spiced roast lamb with pumpkin and sultanas (Run-e bareh)

  • MissQuin on October 14, 2013

    Be warned. The cooking times for this recipe are way off. The lamb leg i roasted was a good 1 kilo lighter than the 2.5 kg specified and even though I cooked it 10 minutes longer than recommended it still came out quite rare - this was perfect for me as I like meat rare but I imagine that if it had been the specified weight it would have been almost raw near the bone. Also the list of ingredients ask for verjuice but it's not mentioned in the instructions. Despite this it was actually a very tasty dish. I used chopped up dates instead of the sultanas as it was what I had on hand. Veggies were in with the lamb for 40 mins and I then splashed over a little white wine vinegar (i didn't have verjuice) and roasted for another 20 while the lamb was resting. I tossed some roughly chopped coriander parsley and green chilli through the veg. Thumbs up.

• Sour-cherry rice with lamb (Albaloo polow)

  • MissQuin on June 10, 2013

    I think this could have been cooked for a little less - maybe half an hour rather than 40 mins. Otherwise it's delicious.

• Minced lamb pizza (Lahm bi ajine)

  • KarinaFrancis on November 25, 2013

    Love this mixture. Have to admit I cheated and used a pita base, but it was yum. All it needed was a dollop of yogurt.

• Zucchini and mint fritters

  • KarinaFrancis on November 25, 2013

    The family loved these! Very fresh and delicious.

• Lebanese nut rice

  • KarinaFrancis on September 01, 2013

    This is a winner. I've made it several times and this time I added a pinch of Lebanese five spice when I fried off the lamb. Wonderful!

• Stone bread (Sangak)

  • RMcEwen on June 26, 2014

    Easy and delicious -- it takes time to make, but is certainly worth the effort. A majority of the time is hands-off, and the breads cook very quickly in the oven. I use pizza trays, left in the hot oven for ten minutes or so, because I don't have a pizza stone or similar. I also omitted the pebbles and the breads were still delicious, if not quite as interesting!

• Lamb and split pea stew (Khoresht-e gheimeh)

  • RMcEwen on June 26, 2014

    This went down very well with my dinner guests. It is quite rich and filling, but the lamb cooks down beautifully and is incredibly tender. I served it, as recommended, with shirin polow. The sweetness went well with the earthiness and richness of the lamb. However, as shirin polow is a bit of an effort, I think it could also be served with bread and yoghurt and a nice green salad.