Latest news with #SamiTamimi
RTÉ News
18-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- RTÉ News
10 satisfying brunch recipes to make this weekend
Brunch is the ultimate weekend indulgence, but if you can't be bothered with chasing down a booking and paying big prices for small portions, why not make it at home? From hearty breakfast baps and perfect scrambled egg, to fruity chia pots and more, we've rounded up our favourite brnuch recipes for you to try. Pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup Natalia Rudin's lemon and blueberry chia pot Breakfast potatoes Sami Tamimi's aubergine and fava beans with eggs Trisha Lewis' boxty with poached eggs Dr Rupy Aujla's overnight protein porridge Full Irish breakfast baps Huevos rancheros with guacamole Prue Leith's perfect scrambled eggs Eunice's high protein vanilla yogurt chia seed breakfast pudding
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Our food, our heritage, our culture': the chef highlighting Palestinian cuisine
Food is both deeply personal and political for Sami Tamimi, the Palestinian chef and food writer, whose first solo cookbook is an emotional culinary ride down memory lane through the bountiful seasons of his homeland – and an effort to preserve the ingredients, techniques and traditions which have long been targeted by the Israeli occupation. Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from My Palestine is a masterclass on how less is so often more when it comes to creating food that connects with people and how the joy derived from cooking and sharing food can, in itself, be an act of resistance. 'As a chef and writer this is a political act, a way to show young Palestinians who weren't born there the deep emotional connection we have to the land, to the food of our land, and how Palestine used to be,' Tamimi said. 'This is me being resilient as a Palestinian but also recognizing that I am privileged to have a voice and talking about our food is a way of keeping it alive.' Each recipe – from tahini, halva and coffee brownies to green kishk (fermented yoghurt and bulgar) and Gazan dukkah (a spice mix for dipping) – speaks to how much Palestinians love to forage, cook, preserve and eat food. It's a core part of the culture and heritage that Tamimi hopes will help broaden the world's understanding of what it means to be Palestinian. 'Our dishes are being claimed by some Israeli chefs and so many native ingredients – lentils and sesame and greens – that I remember foraging for with my family are starting to disappear as access to our land shrinks. But this is our food, this is our history, our culture. You can't take my memories away from me. You can't tell me that this is not my land,' said Tamimi. Tamimi was born and raised in the Old City of Jerusalem, and grew up foraging in the surrounding hills with his parents for herbs, berries and greens – ingredients his mother would then use to create honest, simple dishes that were mostly vegetarian. After a long stint as head chef at Lilith, a fine dining establishment in Tel Aviv, Tamimi moved to London in 1997 at the age of 29 to work at Baker & Spice, where Yotam Ottolenghi, then a young pastry chef who grew up in the Jewish part of the Old City, also landed. The pair went on to create a hugely successful culinary enterprise including several restaurants in central London and together co-wrote the bestselling cookbooks Ottolenghi (2008) and Jerusalem (2012). In 2020, Tamimi co-wrote Falastin (2020), a love letter to Palestine's ancient, diverse culinary traditions – and the people who have preserved the food amid unbearable losses. He rediscovered a passion for foraging in Umbria, Italy, which has a similar climate to Palestine, and began re-creating dishes from his homeland to stave off homesickness during the Covid pandemic. This helped sow the seed for Boustany, which means 'my garden' in Arabic, that is steeped in childhood memories of staying at his grandparents' home in Hebron in the southern West Bank, where the garden they tended with love delivered a bounty of fruits and vegetables each season. 'The majority of our cuisine is based on vegetables, grains and pulses, and for me the whole process of cooking vegetarian food connects me back to the environment, to the land, to simple dishes – that could be just a bit of chard with some mackerel and a bit of onion and garlic,' he said. 'It's simple, not gimmicky, but really flavorsome and colorful and brings comfort because it connects me back to my family, to my heritage and all those beautiful memories. It was going to be a vegan cookbook but I couldn't give up on cheese and eggs – especially for making sweets.' The 70-year-plus Israeli occupation and expansion into Palestinian territories has severely restricted access to land, and foraging some native plants is actually banned by the Israeli state for Palestinians, while it fills the market with cheap Israeli alternatives. Olive trees, central to Palestinian identity, are frequently burned and chopped down by Israeli settlers in the West Bank; irrigation systems and wells are contaminated and destroyed; and for years fishers in Gaza have been denied access to Palestinian waters – and targeted with violence. Preservation is an arc of this book, a deliberate though unsaid theme at a time when Palestinian food, land and culture are under unprecedented assault. This includes a pantry, or mooneh, chapter, a unique concept to Middle Eastern cooking, especially Palestinian and Levantine cuisine. Mooneh involves preserving (pickling, freezing, fermenting and bottling) seasonal products such as nuts, herbs, fruits, pulses and vegetables so they can be enjoyed throughout the year. But the book also looks forward, with new twists to traditional recipes inspired by Tamimi's travels and evolution as chef over the past four decades. 'For me it's more important to take the essence of a traditional dish and build on it, by adding the layers and the texture,' he said. 'But you shouldn't play with the dish too much to ruin it.' Tamimi was in the final stretch of writing Boustany when Israel launched its unprecedented and relentless military assault on Gaza – in retaliation for Hamas's attack on 7 October 2023. Israel has since razed the tiny territory, targeting the farmland, forests, olive orchards and greenhouses to stop Gazans from producing their own food while blocking humanitarian supplies – which together has put 2 million Palestinians on the brink of starvation. Last month, a French historian who made it into the territory to document the horrors hidden from foreign journalists reported that he saw starving children sharing bits of food with scrawny stray cats. 'Palestinian people are full of life, they always want to make you welcome and will push food on your plate just to make sure that you are well fed, happy and comfortable,' Tamimi said. 'It's horrendous for people that always celebrated life and food and seasonality and feeding people to be stripped from all of that, and for it to be used as a weapon against them.' Palestinian recipes always have a local spin. For example, the cuisine in Gaza was uniquely influenced by its proximity to Egypt, so dishes are spicier, and the falafel is often made with fava beans instead of just chickpeas. Gaza's version of knafeh – a popular dessert that combines crispy pastry, sweet cheese and fragrant syrup – includes walnuts and sometimes bulgar or couscous. The seafood enjoyed in Gaza before Israel's total siege – such as crab and squid – are hard to find in other parts of Palestine, and the strawberries there are the sweetest, said Tamimi. 'There is another side to Palestinians that I want to show in the book. They want to eat and enjoy life, they want to live life to the max. Through food and these dishes I can connect with people who want to know more about Palestine and Palestinian culture. If there is something positive, with all the horrible stuff happening now, it is that it has opened people's eyes.' Boustany by Sami Tamimi (Ebury Publishing, £30). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Our food, our heritage, our culture': the chef highlighting Palestinian cuisine
Food is both deeply personal and political for Sami Tamimi, the Palestinian chef and food writer, whose first solo cookbook is an emotional culinary ride down memory lane through the bountiful seasons of his homeland – and an effort to preserve the ingredients, techniques and traditions which have long been targeted by the Israeli occupation. Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from My Palestine is a masterclass on how less is so often more when it comes to creating food that connects with people and how the joy derived from cooking and sharing food can, in itself, be an act of resistance. 'As a chef and writer this is a political act, a way to show young Palestinians who weren't born there the deep emotional connection we have to the land, to the food of our land, and how Palestine used to be,' Tamimi said. 'This is me being resilient as a Palestinian but also recognizing that I am privileged to have a voice and talking about our food is a way of keeping it alive.' Each recipe – from tahini, halva and coffee brownies to green kishk (fermented yoghurt and bulgar) and Gazan dukkah (a spice mix for dipping) - speaks to how much Palestinians love to forage, cook, preserve, host and eat food. It's a core part of the culture and heritage that Tamimi hopes to help broaden the world's understanding of. 'Our dishes are being claimed by some Israeli chefs and so many native ingredients – lentils and sesame and greens – that I remember foraging for with my family are starting to disappear as access to our land shrinks. But this is our food, this is our history, our culture. You can't take my memories away from me. You can't tell me that this is not my land,' said Tamimi. Tamimi was born and raised in the Old City of Jerusalem, and grew up foraging in the surrounding hills with his parents for herbs, berries and greens – ingredients his mother would then use to create honest, simple dishes that were mostly vegetarian. After a long stint as head chef at Lilith, a fine dining establishment in Tel Aviv, Samimi moved to London in 1997 at the age of 29 to work at Baker & Spice, where Yotam Ottolenghi, then a young pastry chef who grew up in the Jewish part of the Old City, also landed. The pair went on to create a hugely successful culinary enterprise including several restaurants in central London and together co-wrote the bestselling cookbooks Ottolenghi (2008) and Jerusalem (2012). In 2020, Tamimi co-wrote Falastin (2020), a love letter to Palestine's ancient, diverse culinary traditions – and the people who have preserved the food amid unbearable losses. He rediscovered a passion for foraging in Umbria, Italy, which has a similar climate to Palestine, and began recreating dishes from his homeland to stave off homesickness during the Covid pandemic. This helped sow the seed for Boustany, which means 'my garden' in Arabic, that is steeped in childhood memories of staying at his grandparents' home in Hebron in the southern West Bank, where the garden they tended with love delivered a bounty of fruits and vegetables each season. 'The majority of our cuisine is based on vegetables, grains and pulses, and for me the whole process of cooking vegetarian food connects me back to the environment, to the land, to simple dishes – that could be just a bit of chard with some mackerel and a bit of onion and garlic,' he said. 'It's simple, not gimmicky, but really flavorsome and colorful and brings comfort because it connects me back to my family, to my heritage and all those beautiful memories. It was going to be a vegan cookbook but I couldn't give up on cheese and eggs – especially for making sweets.' The 70-year plus Israeli occupation and expansion into Palestinian territories has severely restricted access to land, and foraging some native plants is actually banned by the Israeli state for Palestinians, while it fills the market with cheap Israeli alternatives. Olive trees, central to Palestinian identity, are frequently burnt and chopped down by Israeli settlers in the West Bank; irrigation systems and wells are contaminated and destroyed; and for years fishermen in Gaza have been denied access to Palestinian waters – and targeted with violence. Preservation is an arc of this book, a deliberate though unsaid theme at a time when Palestinian food, land and culture are under unprecedented assault. This includes a pantry, or mooneh, chapter, a unique concept to Middle Eastern cooking, especially Palestinian and Levantine cuisine. Mooneh involves preserving (pickling, freezing, fermenting and bottling) seasonal products such as nuts, herbs, fruits, pulses and vegetables so they can be enjoyed throughout the year. But the book also looks forward, with new twists to traditional recipes inspired by Tamimi's travels and evolution as chef over the past four decades. 'For me it's more important to take the essence of a traditional dish and build on it, by adding the layers and the texture,' he said. 'But you shouldn't play with the dish too much to ruin it.' Tamimi was in the final stretch of writing Boustany when Israel launched its unprecedented and relentless military assault on Gaza – in retaliation for Hamas' attack on 7 October 2023. Israel has since razed the tiny territory, targeting the farmland, forests, olive orchards and greenhouses to stop Gazans from producing their own food while blocking humanitarian supplies – which together has put 2 million Palestinians on the brink of starvation. Last month, a French historian who made it into the territory to document the horrors hidden from foreign journalists reported that he saw starving children sharing bits of food with scrawny stray cats. 'Palestinian people are full of life, they always want to make you welcome and will push food on your plate just to make sure that you are well fed, happy and comfortable,' Tamimi said. 'It's horrendous for people that always celebrated life and food and seasonality and feeding people to be stripped from all of that, and for it to be used as a weapon against them.' Palestinian recipes always have a local spin. For example, the cuisine in Gaza was uniquely influenced by its proximity to Egypt, so dishes are spicier, and the falafel is often made with fava beans instead of just chickpeas. Gaza's version of knafeh – a popular dessert that combines crispy pastry, sweet cheese and fragrant syrup – includes walnuts and sometimes bulgar or couscous. The seafood enjoyed in Gaza before Israel's total siege – like crab and squid – are hard to find in other parts of Palestine, and the strawberries there are the sweetest, said Tamimi. 'There is another side to Palestinians that I want to show in the book. They want to eat and enjoy life, they want to live life to the max. Through food and these dishes I can connect with people who want to know more about Palestine and Palestinian culture. If there is something positive, with all the horrible stuff happening now, it is that it has opened people's eyes.' Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from My Palestine, is available in the US and UK through Penguin Random House
Irish Examiner
11-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
Top 8: These shop-bought hummus meals are a taste of the Middle East
Hummus, a high-protein and fibre food, is the subject of our Top 8 today. With a history going back at least five centuries, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine all make claims to its origin. National claims aside, no one disputes that hummus is a Middle Eastern dish. It gained popularity in Ireland and Britain, thanks to the efforts of Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi and Israeli-born chef Yotam Ottolenghi. Together, they wrote the superb Jerusalem cookbook, a 2012 classic. In the Middle East, a hummusia is a simple eatery specialising in mainly hummus of many varieties. Our tasting for today revealed some variety, although not all of it was positive, with the term 'classic' being used somewhat loosely. One had a form of broad bean protein added to make the classic 'high protein' - it didn't make the cut. While olive oil is used in the best of them, in Middle Eastern homes, it's not always in the mixture but later drizzled over the paste, which is spread onto a plate. An optional traditional ingredient is ground cumin, which adds richness. Rapeseed oil is often used in Irish products. Good as an import substitute, and cheaper too, but not for flavour. All our samples pair well with fish and are delicious served in pitta bread with shredded lettuce, and tomatoes. Izz Café hummus. Food pics: Dan Linehan Izz café 290g €6.90 (€2.37/100g) Palestinians Izzeddeen and Eman Alkarajeh's café and takeaway produce the benchmark hummus for our Top 8. Rich. With a smooth texture, all the flavours of lemon, tahini, garlic, chickpeas and olive oil blend perfectly. Sold with pickled vegetables and a very hot chilli dip, this was one of three favourites of tasters. From the café on George's Quay, Cork. Keep an eye out for owners' events to support their home country. Score: 10 Real Olive Company hummus. Real Olive Company 360g €6.30 (€2/100g) Slightly gritty with beautiful, genuine flavours, good quality olive oil heightens the deep flavour, while fresh lemon lightens it to provide balance. Another favourite. Score: 10 M&S Reduced Fat hummus. M&S reduced fat houmous 230g €2.50 (€1.08/100g) We compared this reduced-fat version (17.7% fat) to the M&S Creamy Houmous (27.2% fat). Both were delicious. The main difference is that the reduced-fat hummus contains 1% olive oil, while the creamy version contains 5%. Good to see no preservatives in either. The creamy one is a little richer, but both have natural flavours with lemon coming through nicely. Score: 10 Quay Co-Op Traditional Hummus. Quay Co-Op Traditional Hummus 170g €3.25 (€1.91/100g) Quite a gritty texture with a welcome oiliness from the olive oil, providing a rich taste. A hint of cumin, combined with a little pepper, works well. The preservative is potassium sorbate, which delivers a shelf life of six days from the time of purchase. Score: 9 Classic hummus. Classic houmous 170g €1.05 (62c/100g) A mild, creamy hummus, with little taste of lemon. Fresh lemon juice would make it so much better. Chickpeas (46%), rapeseed oil, 13% sesame paste (providing the typical nutty flavour), concentrated lemon juice 3%, garlic purée, salt 0.6%, with potassium sorbate as the added preservative. Olive oil, which is more expensive, would make a huge difference. We bought it in SuperValu. Score: 7.5 The Happy Pear hummus. The Happy Pear Hummus 150g €2.99 (€1.99/100g) Chickpeas (49%), rapeseed oil, tahini (15%), lemon juice concentrate, garlic (1%), salt (1%), making it quite salty, with heat provided by unconventional cayenne, softened by more traditional cumin. The freshness of fresh lemon isn't there. Expensive for what it is. Score: 7 Aldi's The Deli hummus. Aldi The Deli Houmous 200g 75c (37.5c/100g) Chickpeas (48%) and 13% sesame seed paste (tahini) and garlic purée deliver some traditional flavours. However, rapeseed oil and concentrated lemon juice detract from the freshness and depth of flavour. Salt at 0.65% is not overdone, potassium sorbate is the preservative. We missed the flavour of olive oil, but overall fair value. Score: 7.5 Dunnes Classic hummus. Dunnes Classic Houmous 200g 75c (37.5c/100g) Chickpeas 53%, tahini paste 12%, rapeseed oil, lemon juice concentrate 3.5%, garlic 2.5%, and salt 0.52% make a simple hummus. It would have been improved by olive oil and fresh lemon juice instead of concentrated, but it's fine for the price. Try adding a tablespoon loosened with olive oil to salads as a dressing. Score: 7.5
The Star
09-07-2025
- General
- The Star
Honouring Palestinian food heritage
The ongoing war in Gaza has destroyed much of its cultural heritage. But amid the rubble, at least one Palestinian staple endures: the common mallow plant. This spinach-like leaf, which forms the basis of a traditional stew called uhubeze that has helped many Gazans stave off hunger, is one of many native plants at the centre of Palestinian cuisine. Sami Tamimi, the acclaimed Palestinian chef who comprised half of the duo behind the popular Ottolenghi deli and restaurant empire (the other half is his fellow Jerusalemite and former business partner, Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi), pays tribute to this culinary tradition of 'farming and foraging and eating what is growing in your backyard' in his forthcoming cookbook Boustany, or My Garden in Arabic, which will be released in the United States on July 15. The timing is poignant. In a recent conversation with Reuters, Tamimi emphasised the importance of promoting and preserving the Palestinian people's rich culinary heritage – not only amid the destruction of Gaza, but in the face of what he sees as the longstanding appropriation of traditional Palestinian dishes. Palestinian-British chef, food-writer and restaurateur Sami Tamimi. Some Israeli culinary historians say that staples such as hummus, falafel and za'atar are as central to Middle Eastern Jewish cooking as they are to the Arab kitchen. While Tamimi acknowledges that some dishes are shared by different traditions, he argues that too often the Palestinian history is erased. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Palestinian cuisine has surged in popularity in recent years, in part because chefs like you have made it more accessible. What do you make of its rise? Sami Tamimi: It wasn't deliberate. I just wanted to promote our food, the culture, the stories behind it, where it all comes from, the whole connection to the land – all which I felt, amid all the war, was getting slightly lost. The thing that really winds me up is seeing so many Israeli restaurants opening in the UK and Europe and America that are basically selling our food in the name of Israeli new cuisine. What they do is take a dish and take it out of context. They don't have any backstory about where this dish comes from, what kind of tradition is behind it. It gets worse when they don't even bother to change the name of the dish. So, maklouba (a traditional Palestinian dish of layered rice, meat and vegetables that is flipped before serving, earning its name meaning 'upside down' in Arabic) appears on menus as maklouba; mujadara (a popular Levantine dish of lentils, rice and crispy onions) is mujadara. I'm not saying all these dishes are Palestinian, but they have their own history and heritage and rituals, and claiming all of that... I find it so frustrating. Food is as cultural as it is political in the Israeli-Palestinian context. A bulgur kubbeh dish from Tamimi's new cookbook. Do you see the growing prominence of Palestinian cuisine as part of an effort to preserve Palestinian culture, or assert ownership? Luckily, we have some really talented chefs that are pushing the boat towards preserving and putting our food under the limelight in a good way. But it took a long time because, coming out of trauma, people are focusing on other things to rebuild and preserve. Food was the last bit. When did you first realise that you wanted to be a chef? I was quite young. I went to work in a hotel in West Jerusalem where I was going to help clean the kitchen, and it opened this new world to me. When I told my family that I'm thinking about cooking, they all dismissed it. My father said, 'Are you crazy? This is a job for a woman!' It went on like this for so long. My family owned a transport company. It used to be huge before the Second Intifada, basically closed the whole thing. But my father kept driving a bus because he wanted to be out with people. Since you were born, if you're a boy, your family already has a plan for you, and I didn't fit in this plan because I wanted to do things my way. So you were destined to be a bus driver! Were you always drawn to Palestinian food, specifically? From a young age, I wanted to learn other cuisines. Later, when I moved to Tel Aviv, I realised that the food that was important to me is Palestinian food. But I didn't want to do traditional Palestinian food because, first of all, it takes hours to make. And there's no market for it. It sounds horrible, but when you do traditional food like this in a restaurant, it's a bit like peasant food. People don't appreciate it. Palestinian-British chef, food-writer and restaurateur Sami Tamimi tasting a dish from his new cookbook. I worked in a Californian grill place in Tel Aviv for a few years and I started to combine bases of Palestinian food into new ingredients. And it worked. It was fun because I could stay true to a dish but kind of elaborate on it, and this became my style. I want to think that if Israel didn't occupy Palestine, Palestinian food would be evolving into something that I do today. So, in a way, your cooking is imagining a Palestinian cuisine unhindered by decades of displacement, destruction and occupation? Yes. I mean, people were kicked out of their country, people were losing their homes. In that situation you just stop and think, what are the things I can hold onto? And food was one of them. How have other Palestinians responded to your work? The older generation is probably more protective (of the original recipes) but the newer generation likes what I do. I get it quite a lot from young Palestinians where they say some of the recipes that I do conveys the whole flavour of what their mum cooks, but it takes a quarter of the time. I think the older generation will probably laugh at me. What mess are you making with our food! But the newer generation are accepting it. Going back to the culinary fight over ownership – you've talked about the importance of giving context to Palestinian dishes. Was your intention with your 2020 cookbook Falastin (the Arabic word for 'Palestine') to provide that backstory? With Falastin , I wanted to give thanks. I've been cooking for so many years and borrowing dishes from our repertoire as a Palestinian, and I wanted to stop and say thank you. In the '90s, we had a lot of books that talked about Mediterranean food and Middle Eastern food, and it's a vast chunk of the world. Nowadays, the focus is really about a certain place and its culture and the food. It's a wonderful way to convey a lot of what I wanted to say about modern-day Palestine. What I wanted to achieve from it was to interview real people that really inspire me and whom I thought will inspire otherpeople. Tamimi's Boustany is a way for Tamimi to highlight and preserve Palestinian cuisine. How does Boustany differ from Falastin ? Apart from it being your first solo cookbook, it's comprised of vegetarian recipes, right? Vegan and vegetarian. The whole idea started from the Covid-19 lockdown. When you're in a situation like lockdown, you really get homesick because you want to be with your family and eat the food that brings you comfort. I wanted, in a way, to transport myself to being with my family back home. But because I couldn't, I started cooking simple dishes like khubeze. It started with me just writing these recipes and, six months later, I had 300. And Boustany is a little bit more personal: I talk about myself and the family and the past. I didn't go so much into politics. When Oct 7 happened, I was already finalising everything. It's so valid at the moment to talk about what's happening, but I promised the publisher to do a slightly lighter weight book. Amid the destruction of Gaza and the deteriorating situation in the West Bank, do you feel pressure to ensure the preservation of Palestinian culinary heritage now? Definitely. As a Palestinian, seeing everything that's happened, I'm doing my bit by introducing more and more people to the culture, to the food, to what happened there. Because I feel like the more we talk about it, the more we put it under the spotlight, the more positive things will happen. I feel I have a responsibility, but I also feel bad because I'm away from home. It's a price that I have to pay because if I was back in Jerusalem, I would never be where I am today because of its limitations. I'd probably be driving a bus! – By YASMEEN SERHAN/Reuters
