Malouf : Greg and Lucy Malouf

 Middle Eastern Food is one of my favourite foods.  I love all the spices that go into cooking it.  Their spices are often times a collection of many spices.  Middle Eastern food also brings together fruits and vegetables in their dishes.  For me everything about is enjoyable.

Needless to say I was excited when I saw there was a new cookbook by husband and wife team Malouf.  I would expect every Middle Eastern Cookbook to have recipes for hummas, baba ganoush, stuffed vegetables and baklava.  Malouf does have those recipes.

What makes Malouf different from other Middle Eastern cookbooks is that it combines Middle Eastern flavours with the author's travel around Europe and South-East Asia.  In the words of author Greg Malouf it is "new" Middle Eastern cooking.  Malouf has sought to discover the world of flavour, aroma, and colour.  While I have only made one recipe from this book it was a huge success.

The book is divided into soups, small dishes, large dishes, side dishes, bakery, sweet larder and a glossary.  There are many just gorgeous photos and my favourite a ribboned book mark.

I really like the larder section of the cookbook as it is informative on both how to make your own spice mixtures, pastes and dressing.  There is an explanation for each of them as to where they originate from.  Living in Southern California I have great access to spices.  This is not to say that I have every spice in my house.  With this guide you will always be able to have your own mixture.  More importantly you will be able to keep your spice flavours consistent.

The small dishes could be a meal all by themselves.  The small dishes are divided between stuffed vegetables, cheese dishes, seafood, kofte and fritters and meat and poultry.  The large dishes offer a wonderful selection of seafood, lamb and meat and poultry.  In the bakery section you have your choice of making your own bread, just think of aniseed bread with wild figs, to Turkish flatbread.  Of course you could make a honey-cur pie with rose-scented figs.  Notice this is the second time I have mentioned figs, one of my favourite fruits.  You can also make toffeed fig pavlovas.  There are a few recipes of baklava in the sweet section, but who needs baklava when you can make a green apple souffle with pistachio-halva ice cream.

This is a cookbook that I know will get pulled down from my shelf time after time.  I always think of Middle Eastern cooking as healthy and these recipes offer plenty of choices for combining an assortment of spices with innovative dishes.  The one dish I tried was a Seven-Vegetable tagine.  It was simple to make and just delicious.  Do I have a photo-no, everyone dug in before I could snap one.  The recipes in this book are easy to follow.  I like the way the book is organized.  If you chose to have a Middle Eastern dinner theme you could select a recipe from each section.  For me I want to make almost every recipe in the book.

This is my contribution for Weekend Food Blogging hosted by Beth Fish Reads and Saturday Snapshots hosted by At Home with Books.

Thank you to Rizzoli Publishing for letting me savour one of my favourite foods.