Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes [Paperback]

Madelain Farah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2001

As a young girl, Madelain Farah spent hours watching her mother cook. Capturing her mother's "a pinch of this" technique, she has re-created recipes for everything from Arabic Bread, Lentil Soup, and Eggplant Salad, to Baked Fish with Tahini Sauce, Supreme Lamb Stew with Kibbi, and the classic Cucumber Yogurt Salad.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Other areas of the Middle East have their own distinctive cooking traditions. Lebanese Cuisine offers light foods with strong flavors of cinnamon, allspice, and lemons. The late Farah compiled her list of the best Lebanese recipes and made them easy to reproduce in American kitchens. Tabbuli, here called Arabic salad supreme, with its liberal amounts of fresh parsley and mint, appeals to many tastes. Dishes with names on the order of epiphany sweet and Arabic sausage made from pork recall Lebanon's sizeable Arab Christian community. But pork and beef are still exceptions, lamb predominating in Lebanese dishes from crunchy Kibbi in all its variations to Kafta, broiled ground meat. A lack of pictures may deter those not conversant with Lebanese cooking from trying some recipes since it's not always clear what the finished dish ought to look like. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Running Press; 13th edition (January 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581793
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581798
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #199,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > Middle Eastern

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive cookbook for Lebanese cuisine, July 21, 2001

By 

W. H. Somerville (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes (Paperback)

Originally recommended to me by my (ex-)brother-in-law, who was Lebanese, this book is the best cookbook for Lebanese cuisine. I have given copies of this book to many friends, and now that a new edition is available, I'll buy more copies for myself and others.

The recipes for Baked Kibbi (Kibbi bis-Sayniyyi) and Baqlawa are among my favorites (I prefer the rose water approach to Baqlawa to the cinnamon most commonly found in such recipes).

The author also presents the recipes with their Arabic names, as well as pronunciation rules, for more authenticity.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lebanese Family Comfort Food, June 5, 2006

By 

Genie (St. Petersburg, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes (Paperback)

I discovered this book about 25 years ago and have been using it and giving it as gifts to children, relatives and friends for so many years. My edition is stained and worn but I have kept a new one wrapped and tucked away for the day on which I will retire the original. I'm delighted that it has been reissued; I can stop saving that wrapped copy.

My family is Lebanese; my grandparents emigrated at a young age to the U.S. in the 1890s and although my grandmother and aunts taught me many recipes, we moved to another state before I could learn everything. Dr. Farah's book filled in many of the blank spots as did Rose Dosti's wonderful "Middle Eastern Cooking" and Anissa Helou's "Lebanese Cuisine."

I prepare Lebanese food several times a week at home because we like it and it is so healthy (not including desserts). When I became a chef/owner of an upscale catering business some years ago, I used many of Dr. Farah's recipes for my clients who were constantly asking for more. We are fortunate in my area to have a large Middle Eastern grocery where I can find all ingredients specified but many can also be ordered from on-line retailers or found in some health food stores.

Sometimes when I make a recipe it reminds me so much of being at Sitti's house that I just want to cry -- the aroma, the taste, the texture -- I can just see us all sitting around the big wooden kitchen table when I was a little girl. This book is not only about the cuisine, it is about family and wishes that so many of those family members were still alive to enjoy our meals with us.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars just like mom's, June 25, 2006

By 

Helen "Helen" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes (Paperback)

This book has the best recipes. They remind me of my mom and grandma's. The preface sounds as if I wrote it myself. My sisters and I have been tiring for years to get the exact measurements of our favorite dishes and cookies. Thank you for writing them down. Even the smallest details are there (use cold water when mixing the kibbi meat. Thanks again, I'm ordering for each of my children and friends.