Imad’s Syrian Kitchen: The Sunday Times bestseller full of the delicious flavours of Syria, with authentic recipes and true stories of life as a refugee

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Buy this book for your reference library if you are at all interested in a book with beautiful pictures, fantastic stories, but most importantly, yummy recipes.”- Angela T. Szpojda By July 2015, he’d made the painful decision to leave his wife and three daughters in Damascus to make the treacherous journey via Lebanon, Greece and North Macedonia, to the UK, where they had relatives. With his children too young to make the journey, the family planned to join once he’d been granted asylum.

It’s been hard leaving out so many of the recipes. You’ll have to get the book! But I’m very happy to be sharing a lovely recipe with you today, and it’s the Muhammara, a characteristically Syrian dip I adore, made with red peppers and walnuts, and topped with pomegranate molasses and seeds, red onion and parsley. Famous cookbook authors and chefs the world have come together to help food relief efforts to alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees. Many individuals have contributed the recipes in this beautifully illustrated cookbook of delicious soups worldwide. Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook”is organized like a meal, opening with appetizers, juices, and main courses, side dishes, and desserts. Booked by chapters on antiperspirants and post-meal hand soaps, medicinal oils, concoctions, and perfumes, this comprehensive cookbook is a feast for all of your senses.In Syria”, Imad Alarnab writes in the introduction to his Plain Rice (Riz Shaeira) recipe, “there is nothing called plain rice or plain anything! We always add something to everything! In some countries, plain rice is just plain boiled rice, but … we cook rice with a very fine pasta, like angel hair pasta, and we always add spices. It would be too plain without it. We don’t even consider salt or pepper seasoning: it’s with everything. It’s like waking up in the morning. It’s what you do next that’s important.” All proceeds from the sale of this cookbook will directly benefit Mayada’s family and other refugee community members.

This book presents the history of the migration of people from the Middle East to the Caribbean. This is not just a cookbook, but also a collection of told stories and insight into Syrians and Lebanese’s growing up in Trinidad and Tobago. Food can bring people comfort in the darkest times, and for Imad Alarnab, this time came when he was stranded as a refugee in Calais for more than two months. To express her gratitude to the community who sponsored the Mayada family’s resettlement, she prepared a hearty meal. Mayada’s act of sharing food ignited an outpouring of support. Numerous dinners followed and attracted enthusiastic crowds to help and enjoy her cooking. This cookbook captures her collection of recipes as well as the story of Mayada’s journey. Found recipes easy to follow. Beautiful photos within a large book deserving coffee table placement.”- Bookaholic

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Claudia Roden is a cultural anthropologist and a British cookbook writer. She is the author of famous Middle Eastern cookbooks, includingA Book of Middle Eastern Food. Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate our Shared Humanity About the author:Itab Azzam was born in Sweida, Syria, and moved to the United Kingdom in 2011. She is an award-winning theatre producer, filmmaker, and the team behind BBC Four’s Syrian School. Itab is one of the producers of the Peabody and BAFTA-winning documentary seriesExodus: Our Journey to Europe. Additionally, she has produced independent films, includingAntigone of SyriaandQueens of Syria. She currently lives in London.

After his family were able to emigrate (just under the year he’d promised his daughter) someone introduced him to the Cook For Syria scheme – and soon he was hosting super clubs at his house. By May 2021, he’d opened his London restaurant, Imad’s Syrian Kitchen. While the cauli roasted, I made shurabat ends (red lentil soup). An odd choice you might think for mid-summer but since London is having a dismal few weeks of rain, I am wearing my fleece and happily eating hot soup. I simply adore soup and no day is too hot to eat a bowl in my view. Next, I made a vegan moussaka. I never make moussaka the traditional way because I don’t often cook meat at home and the required béchamel sauce is a faff, but this was a Syrian moussaka which is much less work and I put it together with ease in my lunch hour. This was served with sahan khudra, otherwise known as the green plate – Turkish green peppers, onion, herbs, spring onion and so on, the idea is that you help yourself to items from the green plate while eating your meal. Syrian cuisine is a cross between spices and sweetness collide and is the meeting point of the best flavors from East and West. Itab and Dina met with Syrian women in the Middle East and Europe to collect recipes from one of the world’s most extensive culinary cultures. They spent a lot of time cooking, learning recipes, and listening to exciting stories here. Many recipes that elicit vibrant images of an ancient culture will be featured in this book: We had a comfortable life, but most people in Syria were suffering. When you have a dictatorship for more than 50 years, of course people will be suffering. You cannot explain life without freedom to someone who’s lived all of their life with it.Liz Clayman is the contributor to the great photographs in this book and is a New York food and hospitality photographer. Saha: A Chef’s Journey Through Lebanon and Syria [Middle Eastern Cookbook, 150 Recipes]

At Saha, world-renowned chef Greg Malouf explored its influential culinary scene. The traditional and inspirational dishes in Saha will make people be captivated by its unique taste. There were about 95 of us, I felt it was a stupid decision, risking my life so much. I believe the driver was so scared, or maybe drunk – the speed was absolutely scary. I thought we were not going to make it.” Or to put it in terms relevant to a restaurant column, we do not have a more diverse restaurant sector than any other country in Europe by accident. It’s the product of waves of immigration. And yes, of course, some of that is also the product of rampant imperialism; the two things are often fellow travellers. Still, the fact is that if you enjoy eating the food of the Indian subcontinent, or of China and the Middle East, or of West and East Africa, of Thailand and Japan and Poland and all other points of the compass, cooked by people schooled from birth in its intricacies, you should give thanks for immigration. You should give thanks to people like Imad Alarnab, some of whom have risked their lives to be here. I know this is all bloody obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be said.Barbara Abdeni Massaad is the author ofMan’oushe: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakeryand won the International Academy of Gastronomy Award forMouneh: Preserving Foods for the Lebanese Pantryand the Gourmand Cookbook Award. Amid this is an extensive series of recipes that offer a bustling tour of Syrian cuisine. Many of the dishes that have become signatures at Alarnab’s London restaurant feature, including the falafel, which are strikingly shaped with hole in the middle for a ‘crispier texture’. There are six chapters to the book in total, covering spice mixes, recipe basics, starters, mains, desserts and drinks. The Bread and Salt Between Us offer you more than forty recipes. From the fresh tabbouleh that she learned from her mother and sisters to the rice pudding for her future husband. In addition, a highlight in this book becomes a beautiful cookbook, a great gift for food lovers are wonderful colorful pictures of food, people, and markets of Aleppo. About the author:Greg Malouf was born in Melbourne, Australia, but his parents are Lebanese. Before working internationally, he took formal apprenticeships at some of Australia’s best restaurants. Greg Malouf has created a unique cooking style that combines Middle Eastern tradition with contemporary flair.