Cacik Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Turkish cooking class inspired by Somer Sivrioğlu! Yoghurt is a great accompaniment to anything fried as the acid cuts through the richness. I especially love it mixed with garlic and cucumber to make cacik (çaçık in Turkish, pronounced jajuk). Cacik is similar to Greek tzatziki except that […]
Tzatziki Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Greek cooking class inspired by Janni Kyritsis! Yoghurt is served with just about everything in Greece and throughout the eastern Mediterranean – plain, drained as labne, or mixed with garlic and often cucumber. This combination is perhaps best known by its Greek name, tzatziki, while the Turks […]
Maast-O Khiar (Persian Yogurt Dip) Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Persian cooking class! Yoghurt and rice are natural companions and, given that rice appears at virtually all Persian meals, so does yoghurt. At its simplest it’s a bowl of thick, tangy natural yoghurt, but it’s also often maast-o khiar, which is a little […]
Eggplant Fatteh Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! Fatteh comes from the Arabic verb to ‘break up’ or ‘crumble’, which is what’s done to the stale flatbread in this eggplant fatteh recipe. Fatteh is one of those ingenious peasant dishes created to ensure nothing goes to waste and it’s a great […]
Salmon Tails with Yoghurt Sauce Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! These salmon tails with yoghurt sauce are as easy and delicious as dinner gets. Salmon tail is a tasty and great value alternative to thicker pieces of fillet and, like all fish, is best cooked with the skin on, even […]
Labneh Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! This popular Lebanese dip is sometimes referred to as a cheese, but it’s really just strained yoghurt (sometimes called hung yoghurt). It takes a day or so to make, but next-to-no hands-on time. Apart from yoghurt and salt, all you need is some muslin […]
Laban Matboukh (Yoghurt Sauce) Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! Cooked yoghurt sauces are popular in the Levant, Turkey and parts of Central Asia. Some are stabilised with cornflour, but Middle Eastern food expert Anissa Helou recommends egg, which I prefer as it gives a very stable result without changing the […]
Shish Barak Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! Shish barak are little meat filled dumplings cooked in yoghurt sauce, similar to Turkish manti. I find that the longer the dough rests the easier it is to work with, as the gluten relaxes so it’s less likely to spring back when you […]
Chicken Biryani Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Indian cooking class inspired by Ajoy Joshi! Biryani is a festive Indian one-pot rice dish. Unlike a simple pilau, the rice is partially cooked then layered with the seasoned meat to finish cooking. Well caramelised onions are key to a successful biryani – cook them long […]
Turkish Stuffed Dried Eggplant Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Turkish cooking class inspired by Somer Sivrioglu! Strings of hollowed small eggplants drying in the sun are a common sight in eastern Turkey. Hollowing and drying summer vegetables to store for stuffing throughout the winter is a specialty of the south-eastern town of Gaziantep. […]
