Today Jochem and I made lunch for my parents who came to visit. We made that oriental soup that I had planned to cook on Friday. It had tomatoes, red, yellow and green bell pepper, red onion, loads of garlic, couscous, coriander and two essential spices: sumak (which is made from a sweet and citrusy red berry) and zahtar (a mixture of sumak, thyme and sesame seeds). We served it with tortillas that we had roasted in the oven with some olive oil, sumak and zahtar. Jamie Oliver calls this his Astoria soup, after the neighborhood Astoria in New York, which apparently has a lot of Egyptian restaurants (I always thought that it was renowned for its Greek restaurants, hence the surprise). Sumak and zahtar may seem pretty random, but come in quite handy once you get into oriental cuisine. They're hard to come by though, at least here, because we bought our sumak in Istanbul and were given our zahtar by a dear friend from Israel. The soup was delicious by the way - rich in every sense!
Source: Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver
PS: For dinner Jochem and I finally made it to Badhu - an old hammam turned restaurant/hotel on the other side of the Griftpark with lots of oriental mezzes. Great atmosphere, great food!
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