A visitor's special

Time Out Beirut drops in on some places in the capital that dish up cooking like mama used to make. ‘In Lebanon we have two distinct cuisines,’ explains Kamal Mouzawak, founder of the Souk El-Tayeb farmer’s market and Tawlet café. ‘Mezze was festive food, not what we ate at home, so they didn’t overlap, until now.’ A handful of hip lunchtime joints in the capital dish up the comfort-food of the plains and mountains: the aromatic stews, stuffed vegetables and wild leaves; ancient concoctions of pulses and cracked wheat designed to fuel farmers.

Freekeh
Yes, that’s pronounced ‘freaky’, but there’s nothing odd about this fragrantly smoky cracked wheat, harvested while young and still green after cooking. Usually simmered like a risotto with chicken pieces.

Moghrabieh
Often referred to as ‘Lebanese couscous’, and named after the Arabic for Morocco, Moghrabieh in fact bears little resemblance to its North African sibling: semolina is rolled into doughy beads, rather like tiny gnocchi, then piled with shallots and slow-cooked chicken.

Moloukhieh
Originally Egyptian, moloukhieh (Jew’s Mallow) is a leaf covered in whiskers whose stems issue forth a stream of slime when abused. But in the right hands, moloukhieh can be transformed a tasty, tangy, soupy stew with chicken and sometimes lamb. Perhaps partly due to the expertise required to prevent this dish being frankly disgusting, moloukhieh is something of a delicacy and known as the ‘dish of kings’. Scatter over toasted bread and vinegar with raw onion in it, then squeeze on some lemon.

Moujaddara
A sort of Lebanese dhal – a simple lentil dish that serves as a delicious, healthy filler. Flavoured with the usual suspects – cinnamon or cumin, allspice and browned onions and served at room temperature.

Kharouf mahshi
This ‘stuffed lamb’ doesn’t always arrive at the table looking particularly stuffed, it’s all in the way it’s prepared. Lamb that falls apart in your mouth is baked with rice and pine nuts. Often eaten with a dollop of laban (yoghurt)

Kebbeh
The minced-meat kind has travelled abroad, but here, pumpkins, potatoes, tomatoes, lentils, fish and raw meat can be rallied to the kebbeh ranks by being pulverised and mixed with bulghur. Stuffed with nuts and onions; shaped like eggs or battered into cakes; baked, stewed in yoghurt or raw: celebrated, labour-intensive kebbeh comes in many guises.

Kishk
Made of yoghurt mixed with fine bulgur then fermented, filling, cheap kishk is the peasant’s ultimate comfort food. Prepared in villages in the autumn to nourish through the winter, kishk is often encountered spread on manouche or prepared as a soup containing balls of kibbeh.

Lahma bil-khal
Prepossessing neither in name (‘meat in vinegar’) nor in colour (mud brown), cooked slowly and with a bit of TLC this stew of lamb and root veg is meltingly tender and fragrant with cinnamon and allspice. A northern village speciality.

Sayyadieh
This mouth-watering fisherman’s stew simmers rice in stock and piles it up with white fish and caramelised onions, to create a kind of Lebanese paella designed to make the day’s catch feed a family.

Shish barak
Possibly originating as a local variation of Armenian manteh, these meat-stuffed ravioli-style dumplings are cooked in yoghurt (or sometimes tomato sauce with yoghurt on the side) and sprinkled with sumac.

Stuffed vegetables
Lebanese cooks will stuff anything given half a chance and their favourites include aubergines, cabbage leaves (try them pickled in the north) and courgettes. Usually filled with rice and meat, the hapless veg are then stewed in a tomato or yoghurt sauce. Yum.

Debs el-rumman
Bottles of this thick syrup of boiled-down sour pomegranates make great souvenirs or gifts. This sweet-and-sour wonder-ingredient dresses fattouch salad or aubergine slices, or bubbles around slices of soujok (spicy Armenian sausage) or liver.