Fresh and classic Lebanese recipes
Rose Water & Orange Blossoms” (Running Press, $30), the debut cookbook by Maureen Abood, evokes both her Lebanese-American heritage and her life as a cook, writer, photographer and blogger in Michigan. It is an intensely personal book, filled with evocative family tales of life, love, legacy. It is also a practical cookbook with especially broad appeal, given America’s ongoing hunger for Mediterranean flavors.
“The stories have always been really important to me. I can’t extricate them from the cooking. It all goes together,” says Abood, speaking by telephone from Michigan, where she divides her time between East Lansing and Harbor Springs. “I love thinking about the connection of food and memories, and I think a lot of people think that way.”
Certainly, the cookbook offers ample opportunities to craft family meals from which memories are made. It is a mix of traditional Lebanese recipes and dishes she developed, hence the book’s subtitle, “Fresh & Classic Recipes from My Lebanese Kitchen.”
“I’m making use of traditional Lebanese ingredients like mint, cinnamon and flower water in new ways,” she says.
Asked for one must-do recipe in the book, Abood points to hushweh, a chicken-rice pilaf with butter-toasted almonds.
“No matter who I make it for, people want the recipe,” she says, noting pine nuts can substitute for the almonds. “That dish is a standout.”
Abood is also very excited by her kibbeh recipes. Most people, she says, think this Lebanese signature bulgur wheat recipe is only made with raw meat — and it can be (Abood shows you how to do it safely) — but she offers other variations, including a vegan tomato kibbeh, which she says is on par with the meat version.
Some of Abood’s recipes have a distinct Midwest-Middle East vibe, such as Great Lakes whitefish fried in a chopped pistachio crust; roasted leg of lamb paired with a salsa made with pomegranate molasses and black cherries; and baked eggs with spinach, labneh (a thick yogurt) and sumac.
“I hope the book, No. 1, will get people to go into the kitchen and try Lebanese recipes and cook for families and friends,” says Abood, who sees food as a “great equalizer” and a “great communicator” that can be “a way to understanding.”
“We do so much around the table, so much happens to our relationships around the table,” she says.
Abood hopes the book will be “a bridge to understanding for people who may not know that much about Lebanon, the Middle East or Lebanese-Americans. In doing that, I want to present the really rich, distinctive, positive elements of our culture.”
Source: hanfordsentinel.com