Cooking Jordan

 Gastronomy

Jordanian cuisine, Lebanese-inspired, mixes eastern and Mediterranean flavours. Starters often consist of the standard mezze (assorted cold dishes eaten with hot flat bread), beureks (cheese, parsley or meat pasties), koftehs (cracked wheat, minced meat and parsley fried balls) or falafels (fried chickpea puree croquettes). Then you have mutton (shish kebabs), chicken or beef kebabs. In Aqada, the fish from the Red Sea is served with tahina, sesame and salty cheese sauce. If you want a quick bite, have an eastern sandwich, the famous shawarma (bread stuffed with spit-roasted mutton or chicken with tomatoes, onions and sauce). You can also have mensaf, a traditional Bedouin dish, a spiced mutton stew, with curdled ewe's milk, almonds and pine nut, served with rice and yoghurt sauce. For desserts, you have essentially eastern pastries like the delicious baklavas with honey and pistachio. For drinks, wine is served in restaurants (often Lebanese or Syrian). As an aperitif, get arak (aniseed grape liquor). Tea is very sweet and Bedouins mix it with sage or thyme. Finally, do not miss the traditional ?Turkish coffee' (or ?Arab coffee') and cardamom-flavoured brewed coffee, a little bitter but an easily acquired taste.