Imad's Syrian Kitchen: A Love Letter from Damascus

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Syrian cuisine remains relatively unexplored in the UK, and Imad’s Syrian Kitchen ​offers a vibrant introduction to it. Restaurant quality cooking in your kitchen During those long days of Covid lockdown when many restaurants kept afloat by pivoting to meal kit deliveries, I was gifted a wonderful meal. How a British Pakistani volunteer had given him a small stove and gas canisters so he could cook for himself and 14 friends.

Lastly, I made jirjir (rocket salad), a gorgeously refreshing mix of watermelon, halloumi and rocket. I have often made this dish but usually with rice and lentils rather than bulgar and lentils as specified in Imad’s recipe. In early 2020, his friend, Asma Khan, chef and owner of Darjeeling Express – based again in Kingsley Court – informed him that a space had opened up. There are six books in that collection ranging from one on vegan and vegetarian dishes, another on barbeque and one on desserts.

The recipes were all easy to make, though some of the timings needed extending (possibly due to our oven’s idiosyncrasies). Spread the cheer with a perfect gift for foodie friends Cookbooks are the perfect gift for Christmas – they not only provide easy reading by the fireside during the festive season but are the sort of present that can be used all year ahead.

Their lives are further imperilled by the lack of safe routes for refugees who become reliant on people smugglers to get to a place of safety. The dishes and the narrative give a window into the culture and people of Damascus and how Alarnab maintains a connection with his homeland. This is clearly a book that’s been designed to demonstrate how easy it is to recreate traditional Syrian dishes in a domestic kitchen. We sit down with Mathew Carver and Patrick McGuigan, authors of ‘The Cheese Life’, to discuss the obsession with the ingredient and try some delicious British cheeses. Alarnab would go on to open the London restaurant that gives the book its name in 2021, but upon arriving in the city as an undocumented migrant in 2015, he found work in a car wash, where he also slept at night.Since then I have eaten a field full of roast cauliflower in every permutation and didn’t really need anymore.