Saute

In the Middle East it is the more available lamb’s sweetbreads (sweetbreads are the thymus gland) that are used, but calf’s sweetbreads are much more delicate, with an unusual creamy-tender texture. You must start the initial preparation a few hours before you want to cook them, as they need lengthy soaking.

The combination of spinach with chickpeas is common throughout the Middle East, but the flavors here are Egyptian. You may use good-quality canned chickpeas. It is good served with yogurt.

This is an old family recipe which originates in Syria. It is easy to make now that dried pitted sour cherries are available. We used to have to pit them. Serve it with rice or, as was usual in the old days, on miniature pita breads split in half, soft side up.

This intriguing layered dish with a delicious mix of textures and flavors is a specialty of the city of Hama in Syria.

A quick and simple dish to be served with rice, bulgur, or potatoes, or with bread.

A Turkish dish in which yogurt, an important feature in Turkish cooking, is flavored with cardamom and ginger.

This is a quick and simple way of cooking chicken.

A Turkish dish of Georgian origin. Georgia borders on northwestern Turkey and is famous for plum trees and plum sauces. The traditional way to make this dish is to cut the chicken all the way down the back with kitchen shears or a bread knife, open it out, and cut away the bones. You season the flesh inside with crushed garlic, salt, and pepper, then close the chicken up, flatten it with a weight, and cook it in a pan gently in some butter for about 40 minutes, turning it over once. But I find it is easier and equally good to use chicken fillets.

You can buy tamarind paste (page 46) from Middle Eastern stores. Serve the scallops as an appetizer accompanied with a leaf salad.

A Moroccan way with shrimp that is quick to do and really delicious. If you buy the shrimp frozen, let them thaw in the refrigerator before peeling.

A North African—particularly Libyan—specialty. Algerians call the piquant sauce chetitha. The dish is not for everybody, and it is not for a delicate fish.

This Turkish specialty, popular throughout most of the Middle East, makes a good first course or cold buffet dish. Sliced swordfish is generally used, but most fish available in America are also suitable.

Pan-cooking with the famous marinade is the simplest and quickest way of preparing a Moroccan-style fish dish.

Small skate, tender enough to fry quickly, should be used for this Tunisian dish. The wings are bought already dressed from the fishmonger.

This rich Tunisian pie makes an interesting main dish.

You can find tamarind paste in Oriental stores. It gives the onions a delicious, intense sweet-and-sour taste.

Okra is one of the most popular vegetables in the Arab world.

The combination of raisins and pine nuts was brought by the Arabs all the way to Spain and Sicily.

Preserved lemons bring one of the defining flavors to Moroccan salads and are often used together with olives. Cook the spinach in two batches if your saucepan is not large enough for all the bulky spinach leaves. Keep back 4 or 5 whole olives as a garnish.