This cookbook had some really great recipes. The recipes were easy to understand and not too complicated for the average cook. I enjoyed the illustrations and look forward to making these recipes for years to come.

Love that this book is full of so many genuine middle eastern recipes! Many recipes contain everyday ingredients, ..perfect for most homes and kitchens!

To many of us, Middle Eastern food seems exotic - the aromatic spices and unique ingredients are things we aren’t used to having. However, there has been a surge of popularity of Middle Eastern food,(i.e., everyone eats hummus and it is available in every grocery store), so Michelle Anderson’s excellent cookbook The Essential Middle Eastern Cookbook: Classic Recipes Made Easy is very timely, and a book that will garner interest with almost everyone.

The early chapters in the book explain the region, as well as the spices and ingredients – a great help for those who are unfamiliar. Once readers have absorbed information about the Middle East, they are ready to try the excellent recipes in the book. Pita Bread is the first recipe in the book, and not only does it turn out perfectly, the dough can be mixed and proofed in an automatic bread machine which saves time and effort. Then the recipes include everyone’s favorite hummus (Anderson’s is excellent), as well as well-known dishes as Labneh, Baba Ghanouj, and falafel. There is a yummy recipe for Persian Stew with Walnuts and Pomegranate, as well as Turkish Börek, Chicken Kabsa (tonight’s dinner), and a Spiced Beef Tagine. The book has a variety of mouthwatering dishes and most are quite easy to make. The instructions are easy-to-follow. There are a few dishes with ingredients that aren’t in every kitchen, but I found they were available online. Included are appetizers, salads, soups, stews, fabulous main dishes, and wonderful desserts. The only thing that isn’t included is photographs – there are a very few, and it would be nice to see what we are cooking.

This is a great cookbook for beginners who want to learn about Middle Eastern cooking, as well as veterans who just want a few new good Middle Eastern recipes. You can’t go wrong with this cookbook.

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

This book is packed full of delicious authentic Middle Eastern recipes! There are so many familiar choices like babaganoush, but also plenty of new to me flavors as well. I cannot wait until my bff and her husband return from Egypt and I can impress them by cooking them something delicious from this book. I do wish there were lots of pictures though, I need to know what my food is supposed to look like. Great resource!

The Essential Middle Eastern Cookbook is a reasonable choice if you are new to Middle Eastern food. Michelle Anderson lays out the differences between the various cuisines of the area, and then suggests which spices and other ingredients might be most important to acquire before experimenting with Middle Eastern cooking. The recipes are classic dishes prepared in a simple way. If you are an adventurous cook or if you have experience with Middle Eastern cooking, you might search for a more creative cookbook.

Love the recipes. Very excited to try them— really nice looking cookbook that I am glad to have had the chance to read.

Michelle Anderson introduces the reader to the geography and culinary history before teaching the recipes, which makes a big impact as you cook through this book. With so many recipes for every occasion, it'll be hard to pick just one favorite.

I read this cookbook all the way through in one sitting. My husband and I are huge Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food fans (we had Greek meatball & cucumber subs with tzatziki and Tabbouleh for supper tonight!) and I was thrilled to find this on NetGalley a couple of weeks ago! It's just a fun coincidence that I chose to read it on a day where I was making it for supper. Obviously reading it in one sitting I have not made any of the recipes yet but I will be making some in the following weeks and I'm excited! And I already had chicken Shawarma on the menu for next week that I've been making for about a year. Will add to my review as I've made some of the recipes and see if this review gets bumped up to 5 stars!

I have always thought middle eastern cooking would be too hard for me as I am not a great or accomplished cook even though I love cookbooks and I am always trying out new recipes. I just have a short attention span and get distracted easily. Anyway, this cookbook really does have recipes even I can do and they taste good too. The color photos help so I know what my end goal is and if I "nailed it!" I like soup before my main entree and the Creamy Barley Soup recipe, the Lentil Tomato Soup, and the Fareekah Soup recipe, which were all delicious. This book also has tangine recipes I want to try as I have never made one and of course then there are the desserts. The date cookies we're good though mine were not pretty and I think I am going to try the baklava. All in all, this was a successful cookbook for me and I enjoy using it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book and stretch my cooking skills with this cookbook in exchange for a review.

This cookbook had me drooling over every recipe, planning my spice order and dying to get into the kitchen. I love the background information on regions and spices and the make your own spice blends is a wonderful addition. I definitely need a hard copy of this one for my collection!

I appreciated the broad overview at the beginning of this book, covering the sub-regions of the Middle East and the particular foods that are associated with each, as well as a listing of the spices and pantry staples needed to make the recipes. Steps were clearly taken in recipe construction and ingredients to make this accessible to the average home chef. Many of these recipes are dishes I have enjoyed in restaurants but never thought of attempting at home. I'm in cumin heaven here! So far my overall favorite is the shakshuka but I also really liked the potato pancakes. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to try the baklava - either it won't turn out, or it WILL, and I'm not sure which of those is worse. Knowing I could have delicious baklava at any time...well, that seems dangerous. Thanks to the publisher for a NetGalley, my opinions are my own.

I love this cookbook! Easy to follow recipes, easy to find ingredients, delicious flavor combinations! I am excited to spice up my dinner routines and add some new favorites!

4.5 stars. This book taught me a lot about Middle Eastern cooking!

I really enjoyed all of the information provided about different regions and foods. The recipes are very accessible and I like the tips on variations. I can't wait to try them out once I can go to the grocery store again! I wish there were some more pictures, but a bit of familiarity with the cuisine mostly makes up for that.

A great collection of recipes that brought back fond memories of my own travels in Egypt. The recipes are particularly simple, unlike many other cookbooks in this genre, and contain lots of healthy ingredients. Most are vegetarian. My only disappointment was the lack of photos of the dishes. I'm sure so many of these would be very appetizing to see......

Great recipes for a cuisine often over looked by Americans! The recipes are flavorful, vibrant and the photography is lovely.

This is a very authentic cookbook - the author traveled all over the Middle East as a teenager, and as an adult she worked in North Africa as a chef.
You are introduced to a variety of spices that bring specific flavors to the food being cooked- such as anise for licorice, cardamon for citrus and pepper, and cardamon, mild and sweet or fiery hot!
You will need staples such as basmati rice, chickpeas, lentils, couscous, phyllo dough, lemons, nuts, olive oil, semolina flour and honey to start with, and these are easily purchased at the local grocery store.
The first recipe is for pita bread, it uses flour, salt, sugar, olive oil water and yeast . The ingredients are mixed together, rise 3 times for a total time of 1 hr 45 minutes, are cut into pieces and cooked in a hot oven. You can make pita bread and serve it with hummus (pureed chickpeas) for a healthy, delicious snack!
Felafel, another popular dish, is made with chickpeas, flour, cumin and coriander, which is pureed with a food processor, shaped into balls, and fried.
Enjoy making couscous, shakshuka, lamb stew, and shish kebabs in your own home!
There are even vegetarian recipes, kosher and halal recipes for those under these dietary laws, and there are no pork recipes at all!

Besides recipes, The Middle Eastern Cookbook also features a section about the different regions of the Middle East and explained the difference in cuisines which I found really interesting. I learned a lot about Middle Eastern dishes beyond hummus and baklava- most of the food in here looked delicious though it would've been nice if they'd included more pictures to give people a better idea of what some of the dishes looked like and to give me food porn to drool over.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Callisto Media publishers for providing a free ARC

A huge variety of easy to make recipes with a lot of details. Bonus recipes for different sauces as well as suggestions for commercial products if you don't want to bother making your own. My diet is heavy on protein and i found a lot of great recipes to make.
I would've loved to see pictures of finished dishes, other than that the book is great.

This cookbook is filled with easy, flavorful recipes. Each recipe is categorized as quick and easy, one-pot, or vegetarian, and most ingredients required are common to a well-stocked grocery store (though a few specialty supplier references are listed in the back of the book). There are recipes for all meal types as well as sides, sweets, and sauces /spice blends. A few recipes to try are pita bread, Persian Stew with walnuts and pomegranate, and refreshing and herbaceous tabboleh. It would be a nice addition to your global cuisine references, though the recipes are all pretty basic and typical to the cuisine - nothing particularly unique is included.

I am married into a Middle Eastern family so I also married into the delicious food of their culture. My husband's family comes from Iran, but we also know that there are plenty of great dishes to be discovered from all of the other surrounding countries, and we often try new cuisines together (whether they be Middle Eastern or from some other far off place). We love discovering the many delectable dishes that are available if you just have a sense of adventure and the patience to look for them. The Essential Middle Eastern Cookbook combines flavors from all over the Middle East, allowing us the opportunity to try new things from many different places, as well as having some of our favorite Persian recipes (Shirazi salad, Gorheh Sabzi, and Kashke Bademjan). There are plenty of Turkish, Lebanese, and recipes from all kinds of other places we can not wait to try. If you have never had food from the Middle East and are intimidated by the different flavors, I urge you to be adventurous and give it a try!