Foods you must taste in the Middle East..

Ask anyone who has travelled to the Middle East to describe the region and they will struggle to create a picture that comes anywhere close to their experience.  Spices dominate the Middle East, their fragrance, colours and in food, their taste. One cannot really define the Middle East unless one is familiar with the spices of the region and this is also true with food.

Middle Eastern food can be sophisticated, and with a barrage of exotic tastes hitting the tongue, or simple, with something special about them.  Food in the Middle East is something every tourist has to try and here are a few dishes and items worth looking out for.

Iraqi Masgouf. Let’s start with something unusual, Carp. This freshwater fish is something most people would very easily turn their noses up to, and quite rightly so, carp is not the most appealing of foods. However, when carp has been slow-cooked for three or four hours leaving none of the fishy fat carp is known for, and then served with lemon, pickles and maybe a salad carp takes on a whole new meaning.

Baklava. Okay, let’s go to another extreme far away from carp. Baklava is a Middle Eastern sweet dish that is known and loved worldwide. Chopped nuts, lashings of sweet syrup and honey with filo pastry mad with plenty of butter make a dish that is so amazing that it is little wonder it is one of the most popular in the world but it is best eaten in the Middle East.

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Quwarmah Al Dajaj. Known to many simply as Kuwaiti Curried Chicken this is a dish that, even for the most experienced curry eater, is new. Most curry eaters associate Asia and India as the curry masters, but this Middle Eastern curry, with its uniquely Middle Eastern flavours, tops the list of all curries. The delicate blend of lime, ginger, turmeric, baharat, cumin, cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika makes a distinctive curry that gives more of a pop than a kick. Ask for it by name, or just Kuwaiti Curried Chicken, and let your taste buds be given a treat.

Mansaf. This has been described by many as the Middle Eastern Pizza, but is quite a bit different from the average piece of pie found on a New York street. This Jordanian and Palestinian dish is a culinary delight made from lamb or mutton, sprinkled with pine nuts and almonds, that float in a layer of rich creamy yoghurt. Mansaf can be served on a plate, but for a real experience it is eaten at a celebration, and the table becomes the plate.  It is a simple dish but the slow cooked tender mutton is something fit for a king.

Moutabal. The Middle East is famous for Hummus but there is a dip that surpasses Hummus hands down. Moutabal is a spiced up dip made from Eggplant, a little tahini and yoghurt. It is smokier and more flavoursome than Hummus and will become your new favourite dip very quickly.

The Middle East is well known for its different foods and many tourists never get to try them simply because they don’t know what something is and don’t know how to ask for it. Speaking Arabic can open up the culinary delights of the Middle East allowing you to explore new tastes with ease. Even a few words help, but a full control of the language gets you more experiences than you could ever dream of.