The Levantine Larder: Ingredients We Can't Cook Without

We source our za'atar from a small family cooperative in the Galilee. The dried thyme, sesame, and sumac are blended by hand in proportions that haven't changed in three generations. When it arrives at the kitchen it smells of limestone hills and dry summer heat. Pomegranate molasses is our acid of choice when lemon would be too sharp and vinegar too blunt. Reduced slowly over an open flame, it carries sweetness alongside its tartness — a depth that lifts lamb, duck, and roasted aubergine alike.

Dried Lemon & Sumac

Dried lemon — loomi — is perhaps the most misunderstood ingredient in the Levantine pantry. Whole black limes boiled in salted water and sun-dried until hollow and rattling, they carry an intensely sour, slightly fermented flavour that you cannot replicate with fresh citrus.