My aunt is famous for hers—particularly during Ramadan when she ladles it out daily to scores of relatives and fast-breakers. The tradition is to start with a date (regulate blood-sugar levels after the long, daily fast) and follow with a restorative bowl of dal. 

Desi Breakfast Sandwich - This recipe for breakfast contains long-lasting carbohydrates, protein and healthful fats to keep you fueled as long as possible.

On one of famed chef Shane Delia's many trips to Morocco, some Bedouin men showed him how warming dates in olive oil before placing them in a tangine brings out the flavor of the caramel in the date, leading Delia to this recipe.

Azerbaijan has sat at a crossroads of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia for centuries as a Silk Road hub and a gateway that empires routinely fought to control. That intersection also has manifested itself in the nation’s food—a complex and enticing stew of Turkic, Persian, Eastern European and other regional influences. This food diary explores the unique cuisines of each region.

A take on this date-and-fig bread-loaf recipe from the recent 10th-anniversary reissue of Sally Butcher’s New Middle Eastern Street Food does more than just satiate our sweet tooth. It offers a guide for savoring the simpler things in life.

Bhorta or bharta is a generic term used in Bengal to describe anything that has been ground, pounded or chopped into very small pieces. It is a side dish almost like a relish, which is commonly eaten with rice and lentils.

After decades of decline under communist rule, food enthusiasts—including brother chef and baker Bledar and Nikolin Kola—are pioneering the return of the country’s traditional dishes. Chefs and other culinary aficionados are drawing on Albania’s 500-plus years of culinary heritage to reinterpret the foods of their ancestors. Their efforts are re-establishing traditions that were feared lost.

Al-Baghdadi wrote his hit medieval cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh (Book of Dishes) in 1226 CE at the height of Abbasid sophistication and power. It included this recipe for hais or date sweetmeats.

Forever Beirut—a collection of 100 traditional Lebanese dishes, each accompanied by a personal story—is her way of processing her own grief in the wake of the explosion while preserving cherished customs and recipes and helping in recovery efforts.