Middle Eastern cooking pairs warm ground spices such as allspice, cinnamon and cumin with sour sumac and dried lime, herb-heavy salads, and blends like za'atar and baharat.
Overview¶
"Middle Eastern" is a loose label. This page covers the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Israel), Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen; Iran, Turkey and North Africa have their own pages (persian-cuisine, turkish-cuisine, north-african-cuisine), though the cuisines overlap heavily after centuries of shared empire and trade. The region sat at the western end of the ancient-spice-routes, and many spices reached Europe through its ports and markets.
Across the region, spicing tends to be warm and rounded rather than hot: allspice, cinnamon, black pepper and cumin season minced lamb and rice, sour notes come from sumac, lemon, pomegranate molasses and dried lime, and fresh herbs are used in salad-sized quantities.
The core palette¶
- Warm ground spices: allspice (often simply called "spice", bhar), cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom. These make up baharat and Lebanese seven-spice.
- Earthy seeds: cumin, coriander and caraway; nigella on breads and cheese.
- Sour: sumac (dried berries, sprinkled on onions, kebabs and fattoush), dried black lime (loomi) in Gulf and Iraqi stews, pomegranate molasses and dried pomegranate seeds.
- Chilli: Aleppo pepper (pul biber), urfa and paprika; hotter fresh chillies in Yemeni zhoug.
- Aromatics for sweets and bread: mahleb (cherry-stone kernels), mastic, rose water, orange-blossom water, cardamom in coffee.
- Herbs: flat-leaf parsley (tabbouleh is a parsley salad with a little bulgur, not the other way round), mint fresh and dried, coriander, dill, and wild za'atar (Origanum syriacum) — see zaatar.
- saffron and turmeric in Gulf rice dishes.
Regional differences¶
Levant¶
Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian cooking centres on mezze, grilled meats, stuffed vegetables and grain dishes. Aleppo, historically a great spice-trading city, is known for complex, sweet-sour cooking with Aleppo pepper and pomegranate. Za'atar with olive oil on bread (man'oushe) is a daily breakfast. Palestinian musakhan is roast chicken with vast amounts of sumac and onion.
Iraq¶
Iraqi cooking shares much with Iran and the Levant: dried lime and baharat in stews, tashreeb (bread soaked in broth), masgouf (grilled carp) and dolma. Cardamom scents tea.
The Gulf¶
Gulf cooking uses its own baharat (often with dried lime, cardamom, cloves and black pepper) for machboos or kabsa, spiced rice with meat or fish. saffron, rose water and cardamom scent desserts and coffee; gahwa (Arabic coffee) is lightly roasted and flavoured heavily with cardamom.
Yemen¶
Yemen has some of the region's most distinctive spicing: hawaij (cumin, black pepper, turmeric and cardamom for soups; a separate ginger and cardamom version for coffee), fiery zhoug, and hilbeh, a whipped fenugreek relish. Yemeni Jews brought these to Israel, where zhoug is now a standard falafel condiment.
Key techniques¶
- Spiced rice: rice is often fried in fat with spices before liquid is added, as in pilaf and kabsa.
- Charcoal grilling: kebabs and kofta seasoned with baharat, onion and parsley.
- Finishing with sumac and oil: raw onion rubbed with sumac and salt is a condiment in itself.
- Tempering yoghurt dishes: garlic and dried mint fried in butter or oil, poured over yoghurt sauces and soups. See tempering-spices.
- Pounding garlic: toum (Lebanese garlic sauce) is garlic, salt, lemon and oil emulsified to a white cream.
💡 Allspice is doing more than you think
If a Lebanese or Syrian dish tastes "missing something" when made at home, it is often allspice. Many family seven-spice mixes are built around it.
Landmark dishes¶
Hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, fattoush, falafel with zhoug or tahini, kibbeh, shawarma, kofta, musakhan, maqluba, mansaf (Jordan), kabsa and machboos, Iraqi dolma and masgouf, Yemeni saltah (a stew with hilbeh), knafeh and ma'amoul.
Stocking the cupboard¶
- Ground allspice, cinnamon and cumin
- sumac
- Za'atar — look for a blend with visible sesame and sumac, not mostly filler
- baharat or seven-spice
- Aleppo pepper
- Dried limes and pomegranate molasses
- Green cardamom
- Large bunches of flat-leaf parsley and mint, plus dried mint