Middle-Eastern inspired Easter recipes

Is it finally time to switch up your Easter lunch? How about this year, you cook a middle-eastern inspired lunch? Imagine seasoning your humus with cured sumac, marinating your lamb with wild za’atar and seasoning your veggies with Desert Fennel. Sounds good doesn’t it.. And we haven’t even mentioned desserts or cocktails yet!

Below we share some of our favourite middle-eastern inspired Easter recipes, featuring our single origin spices from our Ottolenghi Inspired Collection - everything you need to cook an unforgettable Easter lunch. With this set of gourmet spices - your dishes will be tasting as good as Ottolenghi’s in no time ;)

Starter: Sumac Hummus

It wouldn’t be a middle-eastern feast without hummus! We love this creamy BBC Good Food recipe which uses chickpeas, olive oil, garlic cloves, lemon juice, tahini, and for the seasoning:

• ½ tsp Cured Sumac

• Roughly chopped parsley

• And don’t forget to serve with warm pittas!

Vegan Main Course: Green cannellini and tahini

This is a wonderful main course recipe for vegans fom Ottolenghi and Noor Murad’s new cook book, The Test Kitchen. This dish is deliciously creamy and packed with herby and zesty flavours.

For this recipe, you’ll need these spices:

• 1 tbsp Wild Za’atar

• ½ tsp Black Urfa Chilli flakes

• Fleur de sel and freshly ground Black Kampot Pepper

Main course: Easter Lamb seasoned with Sumac & Za’atar

For the meat-lovers out there, we recommend Ottolenghi’s recipe for cooking Roast chicken, which also works wonderfully with lamb. It’s quicky, easy and full of flavour! Don’t forget to make a tahini sauce or a garlic yoghurt to go on the side!

This recipe is packed with spices from our Ottolenghi Inspired Collection:

• 1½ tsp ground Sweet Allspice Berries

• 2 tbsp Wild Za’atar

• 1 tbsp Cured Sumac

• Fleur de sel and freshly ground Black Kampot Pepper

Roasted Veggies with Dessert Fennel

To complement your Easter lamb, we recommend roasting a big oven dish full of spring veggies (brocolli, cauliflower, asparagus, carrots, leeks and red potatoes).

Grind a decent amount of Dessert Fennel and combine with our Fleur de sel and black Kampot. Then scatter the seasoning blend over veggies with olive oil, lemon juice and place in the oven to roast.

Dessert: Chilli-Cinnamon Chocolate pudding!

Okay so this pudding isn’t really of Middle-eastern cuisine, but you can’t have an Easter lunch without a chocolate pudding! And not just any chocolate pudding, we’re talking chilli, cinnamon and chocolate - could it get any better?! We are absolutely in love with this recipe from Nigella Lawson - a heavenly combination of flavours from dark rum and chilli to the sweet sensations of cinnamon and chocolate. For this recipe, we recommend using these spices from BoTree:

• 1 teaspoon of Royal Cinnamon

• ¼ of a teaspoon of Silk Chilli Flakes

• 1 teaspoon of Pure Vanilla Bean Powder

• 100g of Palmyra Sugar

A toast to the arrival of Spring!

Ground Black Lime is an incredible Persian ingredient with a tarty kick. The citrusy flavour is used to excite many Middle Eastern meals, and turns out to be a fabulous addition to cocktails! This is one of our favourite lime daiquiri recipes:

Lime daiquiri Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of white rum

• 1/4 cup of lime juice

• 2 tablespoons of kiwi syrup

• 1 cup of ice

• Half a lime to garnish

• Sprinkle Ground Black Lime to garnish

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with half a lime and Ground Black Lime powder.