Moorish: Vibrant recipes from the Mediterranean

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Iran boasts dozens of versions of meatballs and we Persians love adding fruit to them for a burst of sweetness. I often make these meatballs for guests, with a good homemade sauce, which makes the perfect base to plunge them into. You can buy sour cherries frozen or dried, both sweetened and unsweetened. Sweetened sour cherries work best for this recipe, but you can substitute dried cranberries instead. To make the roast vegetable bastilla, preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas Mark 7. Line two large baking trays with baking paper. Fluff the rice up with a fork and add a few extra knobs of butter. Fold in the chopped apricots, dried chopped cranberries, toasted pine nuts and pistachios.

Stir the tomato sauce and place the kefta in the sauce, ensuring some of the sauce covers the kefta. Cook for 30 minutes with the lid ajar, stirring carefully halfway through and shaking the pan to ensure the kefta cook through and are immersed in sauce. Heat a griddle pan or a heavy-based saucepan over a high heat. Dry the octopus pieces using kitchen paper (don’t worry if some of the skin begins to rub away) and cut them into manageable lengths that will easily fit on your griddle pan. Rub all the octopus pieces with olive oil to coat them well. Cooking in batches, sear the octopus on the hot griddle for 1-2 minutes (depending on the size of the pieces) or until char marks appear. Transfer to a plate. Line your largest baking tray with baking paper. Mix the polenta, za’atar, garlic granules and a generous amount of salt and pepper together in a small bowl. Place the sweet potato chips on the prepared baking tray, drizzle over the olive oil and use your hands to mix until the chips are well coated in the oil. Sprinkle with the polenta mixture and toss to coat the chips evenly. Bake the sweet potato chips for 30 minutes or so, until the chips are soft in the middle and browning around the edges. Preheat a griddle pan over a medium-high heat. Brush the aubergine slices with olive oil on one side and chargrill for about 6‑8 minutes on each side, brushing the reverse side with more oil as you turn them over, until the texture softens and they are cooked through with nice griddle marks. Set aside.

To make the harissa lime mayo, mix the mayonnaise ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. To make the dressing, mix all of the ingredients together in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. Her recipes and work appear on a regular basis in lifestyle, food, and grocery magazines, as well as in major newspapers and online media, and she appears on a variety of cooking shows. Sabrina Ghayour, a food writer and chef, is a married to her husband, Stephen Lynn. They recently celebrated their one-year anniversary.

Ghayour then published Sirocco (2016) and Feasts (2017). Her fourth book, Bazaar – Vibrant Vegetarian Recipes, was published in 2019. Preheat a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Fill the pan with boiling water and add the rice with a generous handful of crumbled sea salt. Boil for 6-8 minutes until the rice is parboiled. You will know it is parboiled when the colour of the grains turns from the normal dullish white to a more brilliant white and the grains become slightly elongated and begin to soften. Adjust the seasoning to taste and scatter with the chopped chives (if desired). Serve crispy french fries, mashed potato, or buttered tagliatelle. This needs no accompaniment.

Chorizo, goat’s cheese and cumin borek

Pour enough vegetable oil into a deep-frying pan to fill a depth of 2cm/¾in. Heat the oil over a medium-high heat and bring to frying temperature. (CAUTION: hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.) Line a plate with kitchen paper. To make the kefta, combine all of the ingredients for the kefta together in a bowl, reserving a spoonful of parsley for the garnish. Season well with salt and pepper and really work the mixture into a paste, ensuring everything is evenly combined. To make the tomato sauce, dry-fry the cumin seeds in a large saucepan over a medium heat for 1–2 minutes until they release their aroma. Heat the oil in the pan and fry the onions until nicely browned around the edges. Sabrina Ghayour, a Persian/British culinary writer, author, and TV presenter, married Stephen Lynn in London at the Chelsea Register Office last September, becoming Mrs. Ghayour-Lynn. Shape the mixture into approximately 24 meatballs, about the size of table tennis balls. Gently roll them to elongate them into long sausage shapes. Stir the tomato sauce and place the kefta in the sauce, ensuring some of the sauce covers the kefta. Cook for 30 minutes with the lid ajar, stirring carefully halfway through and shaking the pan to ensure the kefta cook through and are immersed in sauce.