Whether it’s a novel, a film, a foodstuff or a cookbook, if I love it, I want to sing about it from the rooftops! Social media – for all that it seems to foster meanness and moaniness – can be a great vehicle for enthusiasm-sharing, but I’m very lucky also to have the calm space here to concentrate just on cookbooks, to be able to highlight talent and deliciousness. And when it comes to those two inspirational ingredients, Noor Murad’s score is off the charts! As co-author of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen's Shelf Love and Extra Good Things, she already has form on this front, so it’s no surprise that her first solo book Lugma is an absolute joy. Ever since I got my hands on it, I’ve had an extra spring in my step: excellence can have that effect, I find.
Born and brought up in Bahrain, with a Bahraini father and a Victoria-sponge-baking English mother, Murad is perfectly placed to interpret and introduce the Bahraini food she grew up with and loves for the English palate. As she writes in her introduction, “Lugma is an ode to the food of my childhood, a mash-up of food of Bahrain and the surrounding countries, with a slightly Westernised take, thanks to my English roots.” It’s also a book that’s written with clarity and warmth – a winning combination – and I can’t stop cooking from it or telling friends about it. And although it’s not even Easter yet, I already know that I’m going to be giving it several times over as a Christmas present this year!
My little present to you now is to bring you her recipe for Halloumi with Spicy Olives and Walnuts, which has already had multiple outings in my kitchen. I had never cut the halloumi in the way she specifies, and I’m now utterly the won over by it. And the spicy olive and walnut salsa is great for so much else besides, though I find I can eat it just by itself all too easily! I had a very hard time deciding whether to bring you this or the sour-spicy, fragrant and envelopingly cosy Mathrooba (Beaten Chicken and Rice, a kind of savoury rice pudding/porridge but so much more glorious than that sounds) which already insists on being a staple at my table. Thanks to the good graces and generosity of Noor Murad and her publishers, I will be adding that recipe to the site later. But I think you need this book in your life now. I certainly do.
Lugma: Abundant Dishes & Stories from My Middle East by Noor Murad (Quadrille, £28) is out now.
Photography by Matt Russell (food) and Matt Wardle (location).
