Iraqi Cuisine

Iraqi cooking is the oldest recorded cuisine in the world — Babylonian clay tablets nearly 3,700 years old carry complete recipes. Even so, what most distinguishes it today is the pairing of sour and sweet.

Sour and sweet

Pomegranate molasses, tamarind and dried lime run through meat and vegetable dishes and give Iraqi cooking a register the neighbouring cuisines don't have. Iraqi okra with tamarind tastes nothing like the Egyptian version.

Dolma

Iraqi dolma is the most generous of all stuffed dishes: five or six different vegetables in one pot — vine leaves, onion, aubergine, courgette, pepper, tomato — all cooked in a pomegranate-molasses broth.

Masgouf

Masgouf is fish, usually carp, split down the back and fixed on stakes around an open wood fire, cooked by side heat for about an hour. It's a grilling method with no equivalent anywhere else.

Tashreeb

Tashreeb is dry bread soaked in meat broth and served in one large dish — a winter dish that fills like almost nothing else.