Shawarma is up there as one of my favourites, it's so tasty and the hands down winner over the Turkish Doner or the Greek Gyros. Although it's traditionally cooked on a large skewer, rotisserie style, it's easily possible to recreate this fantastic street food classic at home.
Baba Ganoush is a wonderful smoky aubergine dip from the Middle East - it blows the socks off houmous. I love it with grilled pitta breads but often struggle to find the time to make it, that is until I discovered this new aubergine puree.
This recipe, using our Italian Pinsa Romana pizza/flatbreads showcases some of our Middle Eastern ingredients. The flavours go brilliantly together, these flabreads are absolutely delicious and will become a firm favourite on pizza night.
Hawaij is a Yemeni spice blend with a wonderful sweet, earthy fragrance, it's deeply aromatic without any hot spice and is used to flavour soups and stews. This dish combines lamb with freekeh, a grain that's popular in the Middle East and used in salads and soups. If you haven't cooked with it yet, you're in for a treat - it's low in fat but high in protein and fibre.
Using mince is a great way to create quick and tasty meals from scratch. Mince is really quick to season - you don't need to marinade it for hours because there is more surface area for your spices to work their magic. Mince is pretty economical too...
Ready for a cauliflower renaissance? No more soggy, over-cooked mush, cauliflower deserves to be a dinner-plate hero! This humble vegetable is simply transformed when roasted - it's sweet and nutty with hints of smoky charring on the edges.
Chermoula is a Middle Eastern paste that's also popular in North Africa, the recipes for this vary across the regions. Our paste is packed full of herbs and spices, with a touch of chilli. It's also awesome when used with fish or prawns.
When I first worked in London, there was a Kebab shop close to us in Soho that we would often frequent after a few post-work beers. Although the kebab meat was carved from a large rotisserie, it didn’t resemble the processed 'elephant leg' that often gives kebabs a bad name.