Meat Pies (Lahm B’ajin)
No one does lahm b’ajin like an Armenian bakery. A good one must be a paper-thin flatbread, topped with a moist and spicy meat mixture.
Lentils and Rice with Beef (Mujadara b’ Lahmeh)
Mujadara is all about being a vegetarian dish, and so a version with meat seems so contradictory and weird! But it does exist, and it is Georgina al Bayeh, Tawlet’s super smiling cook from Kfar Dlekos, who initiated us to the wonders of mujadara b’ lahmeh!
Eggplant Fatteh (Fatteh Makdouss)
Fatteh comes from fatta, meaning “break,” as in breaking the grilled bread of the fatteh. Fatteh is a staple souk breakfast, originally a Damascene specialty: a yogurt sauce (a hint of garlic and some tahini that will soften the yogurt’s taste) and “broken” grilled bread over cooked chickpeas, cubed eggplant, beef tongue, mutton feet (!) … or over stuffed eggplant.
Beef-Stuffed Zucchini (Koussa Mehsheh)
Meat (and rice) stuffed zucchini are a staple of Lebanese home cuisine. Preparing whole zucchini for stuffing is a tricky job; the smaller, the better (look for finger-size zucchini . . . yes, this exists!), though this makes coring them more difficult.