Palestine. What can one say about Palestine without opening a can of worms? Probably nothing, seeing as a large part of the world’s countries don’t recognize the independence of this Middle Eastern state. Besides the current, contested area (which refers to two separate geographical areas, West Bank and the Gaza Strip, inside of Israel, during [...]

Syria is an Arabic country in the Mediterranean part of Middle East. Its capital city Damascus is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Its largest city, however, is Aleppo, which also contains a old town that has been designated as a UNESCO world heritage site. Aleppo is also one of [...]

Mujaddara is eaten in several Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean and North-African countries. A funny fact is that in some countries it’s known as “megadarra”, which in colloquial Finnish would translate to a massive hangover! Other spellings include moujadara, mujadhara, mujadarra, moukentra, moujendra, mejadra and mudardara. Mujaddara couldn’t really be simpler: it’s just rice, lentils, onion and salt. [...]

Persian (or Iranian) dishes often feature fruits, either fresh and dried, spices and herbs, which suits me great. I’m a big fan of pomegranate, so ash-e anar found its way to my browser’s bookmarks as soon as I first heard about it. It is a split pea soup with herbs and pomegranate molasses (or juice). [...]