My sister has just come back from 12 days in Jordan, and all I’ve heard about is the food. She unpacked her case directly into my bed, piling my sheets high with sesame-seed-coated baked goods. She’s been staying with me for three days, providing different biscuits for every occasion: for breakfast, with tea, with coffee, before dinner, with hummus, after dinner, and because Don’t Tell The Bride was on. Yes, those Middle Easterners really understand the importance of biscuits.
I’m going to try making some of the flat, seeded biscuits. They’re only just sweet and packed with seeds and bits of pistachio. They’re called ka’ak, which is the Arabic word for cake. Finding a recipe isn’t going to be easy with a name that generic. The small pastries, ma’amoul, are incredible – melt-in-the-mouth, buttery pastry stuffed with date paste – but I’m no pastry chef, so that’s not going to happen. I’m addicted to the many varieties of breadstick, too – za’atar and salt flavour, epecially. They’ve got to be easy to make too, right?
Biscuits on their own don’t really constitute a meal, so, with my sister’s expert knowledge, we put together a Jordanian spread for dinner. I’ll blog it tomorrow!
Mange Tout 
I’ve only got one ma’amoul left, what happens when it’s gone? So sad.