I think there's something so enjoyable about eating this way, whether for dinner, snacking, or sharing plates. While I love more traditional nachos, I tend to lean more to this flavor proflle, which means it's essentially all my favorite snacking foods on one giant plate. It looks like a lot of ingredients, but please forge ahead as you're mostly piling a ton of delicious ingredients on top of each other. Pita chips can be made one of two ways: Either peel apart the two layers of the pita for thinner chips, or keep them as is for thicker ones. Here we're going for thicker chips that can hold up to the toppings.
Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a side
Quick and easy traybakes are the way forward. I love the ease of throwing a load of ingredients into a roasting tin and just popping it in the oven, especially when the results are really good and make you think you want to do this again. Happy days.
THE MAN’OUSHE (SINGULAR for mana’eesh) is the quintessential street food of the Levant. Wherever you go in the streets of Damascus, Beirut, or Jerusalem, you’ll see professionals, students, families, and their children all enjoying piping hot flatbreads, usually slathered with herbaceous za’atar. They’re eaten while walking down the street on the way to work or school, sitting in cafés, or around the breakfast table. Among my favorite memories in Syria and Lebanon is heading to one of the corner bakeries and ordering flatbreads by the dozen. Slid right out of the oven into pizza boxes, my cousins and I would rush back to an aunt or uncle’s home and devour them without a single word exchanged.
The sweet, nutty flavor of roasted butternut squash pairs best with flavors that are bold enough to balance that sweetness. We chose the traditional Middle Eastern spice blend za'atar (a pungent combination of toasted sesame seeds, thyme, marjoram, and sumac).
This is a simplified version of the traditional Palestinian dish m'sakhan, in which chicken is spiced with sumac and then roasted in the oven over bread. Sumac and za'atar that we love and use so much are combined here with fresh lemon to give the chicken a powerful sharp kick. It works fantastically well and is almost addictive. Try serving the chicken with warm pita bread and a garlicky yogurt sauce, made by mixing Greek yogurt with crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.