Lebanese food is well known in the United Kingdom, where chef Hussien Dekmak lives, and The Lebanese Cookbook makes delicious Lebanese cuisine approachable for home cooks everywhere. With pictures so gorgeous the reader might get sidetracked into ogling instead of cooking, it displays both photographs of the delectable food described and glimpses at the Lebanese way of life.
Lebanese food is generally served up family-style, with lots of dishes and flavorings on the table, allowing guests to make their own meals. So The Lebanese Cookbook is full of recipes that are mostly a cinch to prepare and combine. A few require ingredients available online or in specialized Middle Eastern stores (such as grape leaves, the leafy green Jew's mallow and sumac), but many boast common and easy-to-find ingredients, such as cilantro, cumin, nuts and garlic, assorted legumes, eggplant, fish and lamb.
Including simple salads such as the salatit malfouf abiad (white cabbage salad), Lebanese classics such as moujadara (lentils and rice with crispy onions) and more time-consuming challenges such as moulokhia bil dajaj (Jew's mallow with chicken), The Lebanese Cookbook offers a variety of recipes that are generally easy enough for even beginner cooks but provides a few challenges for those already familiar with Lebanese cooking.
The cookbook's slim size means it will fit easily on any bookshelf, but its cheerful, bright cover won't let it be forgotten. The Lebanese Cookbook will be a welcome addition to the cooking libraries of home chefs looking to expand their culinary horizons. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm