Middle Eastern Seasonal Cooking
A Middle Eastern Table Is One of Seasonal Foods
Vegetables and Fruits Figure Prominently on a Middle Eastern Table - and They are Best When Served Fresh, in Their Season.
There’s something slightly pernicious about making dolma in February. The zucchini, tomatoes and peppers that comprise the edible receptacles into which the spicy lamb and rice mixture is packed cost dearly in the winter months. Summer is the proper time for dolma. When the baby zucchinis grow so fast and furious that you can barely keep up with the bounty and friends rehearse excuses for not taking any more of the sleek green beauties the second you say hello; that is the proper time for dolma. When the tomatoes and peppers hang heavy on the vine, aching to be picked before they begin to pale; that is the proper time for dolma. But, sometimes, you can sneak a frozen bundle from the freezer and dream of summer.
Middle Eastern cooking is very much a seasonal cycle – at least when you actually live in North America and the fresh fruits and vegetables that comprise the bulk of the cuisine only come into their own for short periods of time.
Sarma season actually comes a bit before dolma season. Sarma are rolled cigar shaped helpings of rice (sometimes meat), onions and other seasonings rolled into grape leaves.
Dolmas taste best when the vegetables used for stuffing are right off the vine... ripe.... but not as large as the produce becomes further into the season. Whole meals were constructed from dolmas, served warm with dollops of cold, fresh madzoon (yogurt), pita bread, and maybe a salad of tomatoes or cucumbers on the side.
Late summer means Lamajun or shish kebab, the latter cooked out on the backyard grill with pilaf and roasted vegetables. Summer meals are often accompanied with Tahn (a yogurt drink served icy cold) or sweet and fruited iced tea, blended with the juice of lemons and oranges. which was really more like a tea punch, blended as with the freshly squeezed juices of oranges and lemons. Tabouli, a cold bulghur salad packed with cucumbers, parsley, tomatoes and mint and flavored with olive oil and lemon juice, works well for the hottest summer evenings. Serve it with lots of fresh fruit and cheeses, special oil-cured Greek olives. Other great summer soups include Jajik (a yogurt, cucumber, walnut and mint soup, served icy cold) and a gentle squash soup of unknown name or origin, made with chicken stock and the insides of the zucchini after they have been scraped for dolma.
Fasoula (a kind of lamb, tomato and green bean stew), served usually with a pilaf and the ever-present flatbread, as well as “Greek Soup,” Pasterma and Eggs, and casseroles like Mousakka or Sou-Berag make a great fall table and, by winter, Tass kebab (which is basically a steamed version of the grilled lamb dish) with Persian Pilaf (a hot bulghur pilaf – sometimes served with vegetables), lamb or roasted chicken and anything we might have managed to freeze ways are typical fare. Fresh fruits also yield to dried fruits, like dates, figs, apricots and raisins as accompaniments - often boiled down in simple syrups or honey and served as compotes.
