Aubergines in a spicy honey sauce; baby onions in tamarind; lamb with chickpeas and chestnuts; sautied potatoes with garlic, chilli and coriander; sweet jewelled rice; and saffron caramel cream. These are just some of the sumptuous recipes in Claudia Roden's new collection, suffused with all the heat, spice and sensual aromatics of the Middle East. When Claudia Roden published A Book of Middle Eastern Food in 1968, it revolutionised Western attitudes to the cuisine of the Middle East. It was written for readers who had to be told that courgettes were baby marrows and who had never eaten an aubergine, let alone cooked one. Today, however, Middle Eastern foods are enjoying amazing popularity, with bulgur and couscous, hummus and tabbouleh on supermarket shelves and fashionable restaurants offering Moroccan tagines and Egyptian lentil soup. Claudia Roden has brought together a collection of new and updated recipes for this new generation of cooks - dishes which are simple to prepare and healthy without losing any of their exotic flavours and aromas.
