Dinner

The parsley salad that starts every Levantine gathering.

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The bread salad of Ramadan tables — crunchy, tangy, impossible to stop eating.

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Smoky roasted eggplant whipped with tahini — baba ghanoush's creamier cousin.

2 versions

Grape leaves rolled thin as cigars around rice — the dish that measures a cook's patience.

3 versions

Burghul and meat, shaped a hundred ways — the crown jewel of Levantine cooking.

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Lentils, rice or burghul, and a mountain of caramelized onions — humble food that outshines feasts.

3 versions

The jute-leaf stew that divides the region: chopped or whole leaf, soup or stew?

3 versions

Egypt's beloved street feast: rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, spicy tomato sauce, and crispy onions.

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Lamb cooked in fermented jameed yogurt over rice — the dish of honor, weddings, and reconciliation.

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The upside-down pot of rice, meat, and fried vegetables — flipped at the table with held breath.

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Sumac-stained roast chicken over onion-drenched taboon bread — Palestine on a plate.

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The spinning spit, tamed for the home kitchen — chicken or beef, wrapped and pressed.

3 versions

Minced meat, onion, and parsley — grilled on skewers or baked with potatoes and tahini.

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Cored zucchini stuffed with rice and meat — the dish grandmothers judge each other by.

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Okra stew with lamb in rich tomato — a lunch that smells like home across the region.

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The Gulf's great rice platter — spiced, smoky, and built for a crowd.

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Yemen's smoke-perfumed rice and meat, traditionally cooked in a buried tandoor.

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Yemen's bubbling lunchtime stew crowned with whipped fenugreek foam.

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Wheat and meat beaten into silk — the Gulf's Ramadan heirloom.

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Iraq's riverside butterflied fish, slow-grilled upright beside open flame.

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The Maghreb's Friday mountain of steamed semolina — three countries, three souls.

3 versions

Morocco's cone-lidded slow braise where sweet meets savory.

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Morocco's iftar soup — tomato, lentils, chickpeas, and a silk finish.

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Eggs meet tomato and herbs — poached in sauce in the Levant, folded into a thick herb cake in Egypt.

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Cauliflower fried deep gold and dressed with tahini sauce — proof that vegetables can steal the table.

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Flat green beans stewed slow in olive oil, tomato, and garlic — summer in a pot.

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Egypt's everyday chopped salad — tomato, cucumber, and onion sharpened with lime and cumin.

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Morocco's smoky eggplant and tomato salad, mashed warm with garlic and spices.

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Tunisia's grilled salad — peppers, tomatoes, and chili charred, chopped, and dressed with olive oil and tuna.

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The monk's salad — smoky eggplant chopped with tomato, onion, and lemon, no tahini at all.

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Wilted dandelion greens under a blanket of sweet caramelized onions — bitter and sweet in perfect truce.

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Yogurt-and-garlic marinated chicken skewers, charred and always chased with toum.

2 versions

Aleppo's hand-minced lamb kebab — fat-marbled, pepper-flecked, and grilled by masters.

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Smoky green wheat cooked like a pilaf and crowned with chicken and fried nuts.

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Tiny meat dumplings simmered in cooked yogurt — a labor of love folded by many hands.

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White beans and meat in tomato broth — the weekday stew that never lets anyone down.

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Peas and carrots with meat in tomato broth over rice — the first tabkha every kid learns to love.

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Silky stewed spinach with meat and a bright lemon finish — iron-rich, grandmother-approved.

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Meatballs simmered with pearl onions in tomato sauce — named for an Ottoman pasha, loved by every kid.

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Rice, meat, and whole garlic baked in a copper pot in a wood oven — Hebron's pride.

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Hand-rolled Palestinian pearl couscous steamed over broth, served with chicken, chickpeas, and onions.

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Gaza's lentil and eggplant stew soured with pomegranate — humble, vegan, unforgettable.

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Eggplant cooked down with tomato — vegetarian and chilled in Beirut, meaty and bubbling in Cairo.

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The fisherman's rice: fish over caramelized-onion rice with a deep brown broth.

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Spiced rice with minced meat under shredded chicken and fried nuts — the Lebanese occasion platter.

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Stuffed kibbeh balls simmered in warm cooked yogurt — comfort at its most ceremonial.

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Cabbage leaves rolled thin around rice and meat, simmered with garlic and mint.

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Lamb simmered in warm cooked yogurt over rice — Syria's white-gold comfort dish.

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Spiced minced meat baked inside baladi bread until the crust crackles.

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Egypt's beloved pasta bake — penne, spiced meat, and a deep duvet of bechamel.

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Alexandria's street-cart liver — thin, fiery, and stuffed into soft rolls.

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Egypt's baked rice enriched with milk and cream until it forms a golden crust.

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Najd's cracked-wheat comfort pot, creamy with yogurt and crowned with crisped onions.

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The Hijaz's milky rice, soft as a cloud, with broth-poached chicken on top.

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Yemen's shredded-lamb stew, served volcanic in stone under a cap of fenugreek foam.

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Iraq's flipped pot of stuffed vegetables, sweet-sour and built like architecture.

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Iraq's layered eggplant tray — kofta, potato, and tomato baked into one bubbling casserole.

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Morocco's torn-msemen feast soaked in fenugreek chicken broth.

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Algiers' hand-cut noodles steamed like couscous under a white chicken broth.

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Torn flatbread drowned in a fiery red lamb sauce — eastern Algeria's feast of feasts.

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Tunisia's bubbling skillet of tomato, harissa, merguez, and just-set eggs.

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