Lebanese food is a mystery to most of us, but Tarik Fallous, restaurateur and chef has given us the tools to learn how to make delicious Lebanese food at home in My Lebanese Cookbook. In the book he explains ingredients, spices, and techniques that make for mouthwatering dishes that are easily made at home.

The book is very well-written, and there are explanations that make the dishes enticing. It is difficult to choose which dish to make next, and there are enough good dishes to keep an ambitious cook who wants to master this ethnic food busy for at least a month or so. Of course the cookbook includes traditional dishes that have become popular such as Hummus, Baba Ghanoush, and Kibbe, but Fallous has also included not-so-well-known foods that are worth making. Not only are there great appetizer dishes, there are healthy and delicious salads, soups, main dishes, and desserts using Middle Eastern ingredients. Some spice mixes are hard to find, but Fallous has included recipes for making them at home, which, since fresh spices are used, are most likely much better than those sold in stores. The Fried Fish with Caramelized Onions and Rice is delicious, as well as Zucchini and Chickpea Stew and Shish Tawook which is fabulous served with freshly baked pita and garlic sauce. The most popular Middle Eastern sauces are included also.

The only drawback to the book is that there are only a few photographs – these are beautiful, but the book needs to have more. Cooks like to see what the finished dish looks like, and more photos would really enhance the book. Nevertheless, the recipes and prose in this cookbook are very good, and it would make a good addition to a cookbook collection.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

I have been busy traveling the world via cookbooks.  It has been a great adventure as, in reality, I am stuck at home. 

This title includes more than 80 recipes that are of Lebanese origin.  The book includes recipes for breakfast, mezzes, salads, fish and shellfish dishes, meat and poultry recipes, side and vegetable dishes and breads and desserts.  There is also an instructional chapter called basics and sections including a glossary, resources and menus for entertaining.  Just a few of the recipes that I would like to try include fatet hummus/savory chickpea bread pudding, fried kibbe stuffed with spiced beef and pine nuts, yogurt cucumber salad, fish with spicy tahini, baked kafta casserole, and zucchini and chickpea stew.  After all that I would like to have Lebanese bread pudding or a spiced rice pudding.  Yum.


In my opinion these recipes are not for absolute beginners but they are intriguing and worth the effort I expect.  Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.


#MyLebaneseCookbook #NetGalley

Thanks to NetGalley for this review copy!
Great looking recipes, I appreciate the info along with them too. Would have loved more photos!

This Lebanese girl approves!

The tabouli recipe is the same as my grandma's so this book is legit!

The kibble recipe is authentic and immediately brought me back to sneaking bites of it and giggling with my uncles while they pretended to hide it from me and my sister.

The salatat recipes made me nostalgic and I've already tried two of them.

If you are a fan or Mediterranean food, particularly if authenticity and nostalgia play heavily into your preferences than I can't recommend this enough.

Minus one star because there were no photos and well, c'mon, we need those but otherwise a rock sold 5 stars from this fata!

I'm excited to try many of these recipes. I've never made Lebanese food and can't wait to find out more about the culture through food.

"My Lebanese Cookbook" contains a diverse array of recipes that are all bursting with Mediterranean flavors, made with fresh ingredients that can be found in most grocery stores with little fuss, and can all be thrown together by following just a few steps. Personally, I can’t possibly ask for any more than that.

Tarik Fallous invites people to cook traditional Lebanese foods that they may know but have never made homemade such as Hummus and Baba Ghanoush. The recipes are simple and easy to understand with most ingredients that are easy to find in the average grocery store. Highly recommended for those wanting to cook something different.

NetGalley – thank you thank you thank you for an advance copy of My Lebanese Cookbook by Tarik Fallous. Five Stars does not even begin to do justice to this AMAZING book. Whoever reads this is probably thinking, “who raves about a cookbook?”, especially when the raves spring from the lips of a heretic like me who has not read one in over 35 years except to look up an old favorite recipe. (OK this is not completely accurate, yesterday I reviewed an Amish style cookbook – but that’s only because I’m new to NetGalley and requested about six cookbooks from the list being promoted.) This book is not only the best cookbook I’ve ever read (literally every word), but it may just be my best GoodReads book of 2020. It is certainly the Holy Grail of Lebanese cuisine. So, you might say, “any recipe I’m looking for, I can find on the internet”, but you would be wrong…if you troll the internet you will never find anything as full of love and devotion to an ethnic kitchen as you will find in this book (MLC by TF should maybe be titled TLC?) , and if you read the introduction to Chapter One, by the author (something I rarely do), you will find that he has IT – “nafas bil akel” – “your love can be tasted in the food you cook” .

So what makes this mid-western smartypants” with roots from Eastern Europe so sure of herself? I’ve spent most of my adult life living in the Middle East. Before studying law, I worked in the Head Office of a major bank. Many of my (then) colleagues were born or had roots in Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, India, and North Africa (to name but a few). Our favorite pastime was bringing in treats from our respective kitchens and swapping recipes. Every herb and spice on the list of TF’s Lebanese pantry can be found in my garden or in my pantry and a I have cooked, baked, sautéed and blended a version of more than half the recipes in this book. …….every spice and measurement is spot on – and that is coming from someone who has not measured anything in the kitchen in over 35 years (since the last time I blew the dust from the top of a musty cookbook).

In Chapter Six – Meat and Poultry – there are some recipes which add yogurt, many are just as good without, or with tahini, depending on the combination of spices used.

I didn’t think I had anything more to learn or wanted to learn in the kitchen, but then NetGalley introduced me to Tarik….and I fell in love again.

A good introduction to Lebanese cooking for the home cook. I liked that these dishes did not require too many ingredients that would be difficult to find.

Are you new to Lebanese cooking or just need some extra recipes? My Lebanese Cookbook by Tarik Fallous has 80 family favorite recipes that are simple to make.
In the contents, there is a chapter on how to make your pantry Lebanese, which means what spices to have, kinds of rice, olive oils, couscous, nuts, etc.
Chapter two has breakfast items such as Baked Omelet with Parsley, Eggs with Potato, Fava Bean Stew.
Chapter Three Mezza which means small plates, the recipes include Hummus, Fried Cauliflower, and Spinach Pies
Chapter Four is Salads, Cabbage Salad, Lima Bean Salad, and one I chose with is Green Bean Salad.
Chapter Five, Fish and Shell Fish, Fish with Spicy Tahini, Grilled Sea Bass and OVen Fried Fish FIllets are some of the few.
Chapter Six is Meat and Poultry. Recipes include Baked Kafta Casserole, Meat Dumplings in Yogurt Sauce, Baked Garlic Chicken and Potatoes and Okra Stew with Lamb
Chapter Seven Side and Vegetable Dishes include Rice Pilaf, Warm Chickpeas with Lemon Dressing and Red Lentil Soup
Chapter Eight is my favorite, Bread, and Desserts. Recipes include Arabic Pita Bread, Baklava, Sweet Fritters and Cream
Chapter Nine is the Basics. Ground Meat with Parsley, Orange Blosson Syrup and Tahini Sauce among others.
The Lebanese diet is one of the world's healthiest of diets. Spices, yogurts, citrus, and herbs are among the flavors that the diet has.
In the book is also four sample menus so you can pair what foods with what.
So if you want to have a simple cookbook that will give you a taste of Lebanese food, check this one out.