Middle Eastern

Tahini, a creamy sesame seed paste, adds a new twist to the dressing for the salad.

A typical Israeli breakfast selection would include this salad (either already prepared or with the vegetables available), the pita bread, and Za'atar along with fresh goat's — or cow's — milk cheeses, yogurt, hummus, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and avocados (in season).

Roasted eggplant spreads and salads come in many variations throughout Greece and are usually embellished with local flavor. In the North, yogurt is often added to the eggplants, for example, throughout the Cyclades, it is the ubiquitous caper and tomato that season this delicious dish.

If you don't have time to make your own hummus, buy some at the market or specialty foods store, and mix in chipotle chilies and cumin to taste.

Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr Savory pastries are a popular element of Turkish cuisine, with a seemingly endless number of shapes and fillings. These little rolls are called sigara böregi, or pastry cigars, because of their shape.

Fine-grain bulgur, sometimes labeled "good for tabbouleh," is essential to this recipe, because coarsely ground bulgur will not soften when soaked in boiling water. A late-season tomato salad or sautéed cherry tomatoes with Indian flavors complete this meal.

This salad is wonderfully refreshing even without purslane, but if you can find the green at your produce market, it's worth using for the nice crunch it adds. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 30 min

Pairing chick-peas and Swiss chard is nothing new—Armenians have been doing it for generations. But with great tomatoes and a squeeze of lemon, this quick vegetable stew is as fresh as summer. If you can’t find Swiss chard, spinach is an authentic substitute.

You could also serve it on its own with crackers or bread, or offer it as a relish for grilled chicken or fish. It can be made with black olives as well as with green.

Jews from Persia (present-day Iran) are especially proud of Queen Esther's role in the holiday of Purim. A favorite dish of Iranian children is halvah, which they eat after they break the fast of Esther, observed on Adar 13. At nursery school, Merissa learned this recipe for halvah from an Iranian teacher. In between tastes, the children played with Esther and Ahasuerus marionettes they had made with the help of their teacher.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

In this take on a classic salad, we combine bulgur with the usual tomatoes, green onions, parsley and mint, then add garbanzo beans and broiled lamb for a change of pace.

Traditionally, kebabs are made of lamb or mutton, but beef, veal and even pork tenderloin are delicious cooked in this manner. Here are several versions, adaptable to any kind of meat.

A growing interest in Middle Eastern food, spurred most likely by the vegetarian movement, brought tabbouleh to the attention of many Americans. It was often served as a side dish at health food restaurants.

The manly art of grilling reached its first peak in this decade, as dads stood by their Webers, stoking the fire and pulling dinner from its clutches while moms did the shopping and cleanup. Besides burgers and wienies, people loved to make shish kebab. Today, grilling knows no gender, and skewers remain a handy way to prepare small foods. Experience has taught us that the vegetables are best cooked separately, or not at all—as this hot-cold, tender-crunchy wonder of a sandwich illustrates.

Antalya is known for its oranges. Wherever they are grown in abundance, the blossoms are distilled into orange flower water. This fragrant liquid flavors the syrup that is drizzled over these nut-filled spiral phyllo pastries. The name comes from their shape and the notion that some people's idea of heaven is listening to nightingales. Serve them with strawberries and whipped cream for an elegant presentation. Orange flower water is a flavoring extract which is available at liquor stores and in the liquor or specialty foods sections of some supermarkets nationwide.

This Yemenite-style dish incorporates a highly seasoned matzo meal coating that keeps the fish moist.