Beets & plums in a rose & walnut dressing

Both plums and beets are available in so many shapes and colors that this salad has a lot of possible combinations: pink beets and green plums; yellow beets and purple plums; purple beets and yellow plums. They all work—very disco and delicious.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main

3 tbsp/50g salt

1½ lbs/750g beets (you will end up with about 14 oz/400g prepped)

2 sprigs of fresh oregano, picked

1 tbsp plus ¾ tsp red wine vinegar

generous 1 tbsp olive oil

1 small bag of arugula leaves (about 2½ cups/55g), washed

4 sprigs of mint

4 plums

For the walnut dressing

½ cup/60g freshly roasted walnuts

1 tbsp rose water

1 heaped tsp honey

generous 1 tbsp olive oil

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Heat your oven to 425°F. Spread aluminum foil over a baking tray and sprinkle with the salt, then place the beets (whole with their skins still on) on top of the salt and place in the center of the oven to roast for about 1½–2 hours, depending on size. The salt absorbs any moisture in the oven, helping the beets to roast rather than poach. This will result in sweet flavorful beets, so don’t be tempted to skip this stage and buy ready-cooked—it won’t be the same. To check if the beets are done, just insert a small knife into the largest one; it should slide in and out without resistance.

Remove the beets from the oven and allow to cool to a temperature you can handle, then take them off the tray and put on a chopping board. Discard the salt. If you have disposable gloves, I suggest you use them now. With a small knife remove the stalks and peel the beets. Cut into bite-sized wedges. Adjust the size of the wedges as necessary—if your beets are huge, halve them before cutting, or keep them whole if they are small. If you are using more than one color, it’s nice also to vary the shape, so you could cube the yellow or pink ones.

Place the beet pieces in a bowl (or two separate bowls if you are using different colored ones, as otherwise the red ones will stain the rest and it will be a wasted effort). Add the oregano leaves, vinegar and olive oil and mix well. The beets will be so tasty at this stage that you’ll want to eat them all, but wait—these beets are going places. This preparation can be done up to a day in advance; just cover and refrigerate the beets until you need them.

Roughly chop the freshly roasted walnuts. Place in a small bowl, add the remaining dressing ingredients and mix well.

To serve, place the arugula and mint leaves on a large platter or individual plates and scatter the beets all over. Cut each plum into eight wedges and add them too. You can season very lightly with sea salt at this stage, but make sure to taste the beets before you do as they get a fair amount of salt from the roasting, so they may not need any more. Then generously spoon over all the walnut dressing and serve immediately—you have waited long enough.

Artichokes & kashkaval with pine nuts

With this romantic vegetable you start with a flower and, after a lot of hard and painful work, you end up with a stripped naked heart. It is not worth making for just anyone, so choose your dining companion with care.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main

½ small red onion, peeled and very finely chopped

¼ cup/60ml white wine vinegar

4 large canned artichokes (here)—store-bought will not work here; you have to make them yourself

1 large bag of lamb’s lettuce or baby spinach (about 3 cups/100g), washed

⅓ cup/50g roasted pine nuts

a pinch of sea salt

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

⅓ cup/50g kashkaval cheese (or pecorino if you can’t find it)

Start by mixing the chopped onion with the vinegar and leave to infuse for about 20 minutes.

Cut the artichokes into wedges and place in a small pan with some of their cooking oil on a medium heat to warm up (you can do this in the microwave for 1–2 minutes if you prefer).

Lay the lettuce or spinach leaves on a serving platter as a bed for the warm artichoke wedges to rest upon and sprinkle with the pine nuts, salt and pepper. Using a peeler, shave the cheese all over the platter in long thin slivers, then spoon the vinegar and onion mixture over everything, along with a couple of teaspoons of the artichoke cooking oil. Serve quickly before the leaves start to wilt.

Jerusalem water salad

This is somewhere between a salad and a cold soup—chopped vegetables dressed with cold water that takes on their flavor. It was originally made by the poor households of Jerusalem, where even a tablespoon of oil was a luxury, and continued to be made as the city became more affluent because it is such a good dish. Prepare this only in high summer, when tomatoes and cucumbers are at their best, and serve it when you’re in need of a fresh and reviving starter to a heavier main, or as a virtuous meal with a bit of bread.

Serves 4 as a starter

1 Lebanese cucumber or ½ large cucumber, peeled

2 spring onions

1 medium red pepper (or ½ yellow and ½ red)

1 handful of small radishes (about 10)

2 small tomatoes, seeds removed

1 clove of garlic, peeled

juice of ½ lemon

scant 1 cup/240ml water

½ tsp salt

a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Dice the cucumber, spring onions, pepper, radishes and tomatoes as small as you possibly can, mince or crush the garlic clove and mix them all together in a bowl. Cover and chill in the fridge until you are ready to serve, but not for more than a few hours.

Just before serving, add the lemon juice, water, salt and pepper and mix well. Serve in little bowls and eat with spoons.

Spring salad

It is best to make this salad in the spring, as the name suggests, when you can buy fresh pods of peas and broad beans that have superior flavor and texture. You will need to buy a much larger amount in the pod—about 8 ounces/250g of beans and 5½ ounces/150g of peas—as the edible bits only make up a small part of the total weight (about 30% for broad beans and 50% for peas). At other times of the year ignore this advice and use the frozen stuff—it’ll feel like May. At the restaurant we use Manouri cheese, an obscure Greek number that is, sadly, really hard to come by, but Halloumi makes a terrific alternative.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main

4 cups/1 liter water

1 heaped tsp table salt

½ cup shelled peas

½ cup shelled broad beans

1 head of Little Gem lettuce

1 medium zucchini

3 sprigs of fresh mint, picked

a pinch of sea salt

a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

juice of ½ lemon

2½ tbsp olive oil, plus generous 1 tsp for frying

8 oz/240g Manouri or Halloumi cheese

For the lemon sauce

generous 1 tbsp olive oil

1 small unwaxed lemon, finely sliced, skin and all, seeds removed

a pinch of saffron (or turmeric, if you prefer)

scant ½ cup/100ml water, plus more if needed

1 tsp honey

First make the lemon sauce. Heat the oil in a small frying pan and add the lemon slices. Toss them around and cook for 2–3 minutes until they start to color. Add the saffron (or turmeric) and water and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat as low as it will go and cook slowly for about 30 minutes. You may need to add a little more water. Once the lemons are very soft, stir in the honey and mix well. Transfer to a food processor or use a hand-held stick blender to purée until completely smooth.

Bring the water and salt to a rapid boil. Plunge the peas for 30 seconds (10 if you’re using frozen) then remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl of iced water. Return the water to the boil and repeat the process with the broad beans. They will need 1 minute in the water (30 seconds if they are frozen). Remove the peas and beans from the ice as soon as they’re cold, to avoid them getting waterlogged. If you want to, you can remove the outer skin from the broad beans by pinching them and squeezing out the beans, but it’s OK not to.

Separate the lettuce into leaves, then wash and dry them. Cut the large leaves in half but keep the small inner ones whole.

Use a vegetable peeler to create thin ribbons of zucchini. Mix in a large bowl with the peas, broad beans, lettuce, mint leaves, sea salt, pepper, lemon juice and oil. Then arrange on a large platter or individual serving plates.

Cut the cheese into eight thick slices. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat and cook the cheese for about 30 seconds, then flip the slices over to cook on the other side for another 30 seconds. They should get a nice golden crust.

Place a couple of slices on each individual salad or arrange them over the large serving platter. Dot the lemon sauce over the salad, making sure to get some on each slice of cheese. Serve immediately.

Watermelon & feta

When it’s too hot to eat, you want to sit on your balcony hoping for some breeze, have a cold bit of watermelon (to quench the thirst as much as the hunger) and alternate with a bit of salty cheese. This combination may sound strange but is commonplace in the Middle East and the Balkans, and in a way is not so different from the more familiar melon and ham combo: sweet and juicy meets dry and salty.

Serves 4–6 as a starter

¼ fresh watermelon (or you could use one of the baby ones that can be found in large supermarkets)

½ green chili

3 tbsp olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

1–2 heads of Little Gem lettuce

1 cup/150g feta

4 sprigs of fresh oregano

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Cut the watermelon flesh away from the skin and chop into large cubes. Don’t worry about making them exactly square; they just need to be a size that can be lifted with a fork and shoved in your mouth easily. Put the watermelon in the fridge and keep it there until the last minute as it needs to be eaten cold. Slice the chili really finely—we leave the seeds in, but if you prefer a more mellow kick, shake them out. Place in a small bowl or jug and cover with the olive oil and lemon juice. Set aside until serving.

Pull the lettuce apart and wash the leaves in cold water. Drain or dry in a salad spinner. We like to keep the leaves whole for this and use them to line a large serving platter. Scatter the watermelon over the lettuce, then break the feta up into chunks (about half the size of the watermelon cubes) and dot them all over. Pick the leaves off the oregano sprigs and scatter them over the top. Finally, just before serving, sprinkle everything with salt and pepper and spoon over the chili oil. Serve immediately.

Big Itzik

The idea behind this dish is simple but winning—burn and chop a whole bunch of vegetables, add some herbs and seasoning, then mix just enough to leave it somewhere between a salad and a dip. I think this particular version is Turkish, as we’ve had similar things in Istanbul, but we first had it in a kebab shop run by a huge guy called Big Itzik. The shop was tucked behind a taxi stand in a smelly alley in Jaffa and so we always associate these flavors with the reek of cheap diesel fumes. As is the custom in those parts, while we waited for our meat to cook, our table would be piled up with salads of variable quality and freshness, and this one always stood out from the crowd. This salad and the grilled sweetbreads were what kept us going back there. And knowing we could always get a taxi back home. This salad is all about the method, as there is hardly any added seasoning; the flavor is in the charring of the vegetables. They develop a slight smokiness and the heat caramelizes their sugar content. If you aren’t cooking outside your house will become very smoky indeed, but good things come at a price.

Serves 4–6 as a starter with some bread

1 medium red onion

2 medium eggplants

1 medium red pepper

1 medium yellow or orange pepper (or another red one, but not green)

juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 large clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 tbsp chopped parsley

8–10 mint leaves, ripped in half

a sprinkle of sea salt, plus more to taste

generous 1 tbsp olive oil

Now, the absolute ideal would be to use a BBQ for this, but if that isn’t a possibility, use a gas stove. Cover the stovetop around the burners with aluminum foil and turn the largest gas burner on. Place the onion (skin and all) in the center, and put the whole eggplants and peppers around it, touching the flame directly.

Allow the vegetables to burn fully on one side before rotating them using tongs. The whole charring process should take about 25–35 minutes and by the end the vegetables should be entirely blackened. The peppers will be ready first; when the flesh softens and the skin is all charred remove them to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. The eggplants are ready when they lose their shape and collapse—this means the flesh is fully cooked. Remove them to a separate bowl. The onion will take the longest to soften and burn. Press it with the tongs to see whether it has softened before removing to a chopping board to cool down.

As soon as they are at a temperature you can handle, remove the skins and seeds from the peppers. You can leave any little specks of black as they will add to the smokiness. Don’t be tempted to wash them off or you will lose all the flavor. Slit the eggplants open lengthways with a little knife and use a spoon to scoop out all the soft white flesh. You want to get as close to the eggplant skin as possible for the flavor. Then simply peel off and discard the outer layer of the onion, and cut the softened bulb into quarters.

Place all the vegetables on a board and chop roughly so you can still see all the different colors and textures. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, parsley, mint, sea salt and oil. Mix well and taste. You may need a touch more salt, but you want to be able to taste every single vegetable.

We like to serve this with some yogurt—sheep’s or goats’ yogurt works best—and zehug, our cilantro-chili relish (here).

Poached quince with curd cheese & honeyed hazelnuts

Unlike many European cheeses, most Middle Eastern cheeses are fresh, white and have a strong milky taste which we love. I like to make my own curd—almost a lost tradition these days—but you can also do as my lazy husband would and buy supermarket ricotta. I like my curd soft so I make it on the day of serving, but if you prefer a firmer cheese, start it the night before, add another teaspoon of salt to the mix and leave it hanging overnight. If you can’t source quince, try this recipe with pears instead, but note that they will take half the time to cook. Pears don’t have that special quince texture, but are a good substitute nonetheless. Even if you aren’t going to make your own curd—or indeed make this recipe—do try making the honeyed hazelnuts. They are one of the tastiest preparations in this book and need no accompaniment. You can use as much sea salt and chili as you dare; they’ll be the better for it.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a light main

1 large bag of lamb’s lettuce or baby spinach (about 3 cups/100g), washed

1 small bunch of mint (about ½cup/15–20g), picked

For the quince

2 large quinces (or 3 pears)

juice of 1 lemon

½ cup/100g caster sugar

1 cinnamon stick

For the curd cheese (this makes about ½ lb/250g curd cheese—enough for this recipe)

2¼ cups/550ml full fat milk (you can use goats’ milk if you prefer)

scant ½ cup/100ml single cream

scant ¾ cup/150g natural yogurt

1 heaping tsp salt

juice of 1–2 lemons

For the honeyed hazelnuts

¾ cup/100g roasted whole hazelnuts

heaping 1 tbsp honey

a pinch of chili flakes

a generous pinch of sea salt

For the vinaigrette

generous 1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cider vinegar

heaping 1 tsp honey

salt and pepper, to taste

Start by cutting each quince (unpeeled) into eight segments and removing the cores with a sharp knife (if you are using pears, quarter them instead). Place in a pan, cover with water and add the lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon stick. Bring to the boil and simmer until the fruit is soft (about 10–15 minutes), then remove from the heat and leave to cool in its poaching liquid in the pan.

Pour the milk and the cream for the curd into a different pan and bring to the boil over a high heat, stirring to avoid burning. Watch it—you don’t turn your back on a pot of boiling milk. As soon as it has boiled, add the yogurt and salt and mix through. Return to the boil, then drizzle the juice of one of the lemons all over the milk. You will see it start to split. Leave it on the heat and don’t stir, so as not to interfere with the curd formation. Allow to boil for 2 minutes, then turn the heat off. You should see that the curd has separated from the whey; if it hasn’t, you may be missing some acidity so add the juice from the second lemon and boil for another couple of minutes until the mixture splits.

Allow to sit for 5 minutes. You can then either use a cheesecloth in a large bowl for the next step, or do as I do and use an unworn stocking inside a tall, narrow vase, folding the top over the sides to hold it in place. Carefully pour the curds and whey into the cheesecloth or stocking and leave to rest for another 10 minutes, with the material still sitting in the whey. Then lift it out and hang to drip-dry (I tie the stocking to the tap over the sink to drip there). I like my curd soft so I only leave it hanging for up to 30 minutes, but you can make a firmer cheese by adding another teaspoon of salt to the milk mixture when you are boiling it and then hanging it overnight; the next day it should resemble a feta.

To prepare the hazelnuts, simply break them up a little and mix with the honey, chili and salt in a small bowl. When you are ready to serve, mix all the vinaigrette ingredients in a bowl or jug, then use to dress the lamb’s lettuce (or spinach) and mint leaves.

We like to serve this on individual plates with a little mound of dressed leaves at the top of the plate, then the quince wedges at the bottom left, followed by a spoonful of the curd cheese at the bottom right and the honeyed hazelnuts on top of the curd. You can sprinkle with more chili flakes, if you want, and some freshly ground black pepper.

Any leftover quince syrup can be used to make iced tea (here) or saved and used to poach the next batch, as the flavor will intensify.