Rumi: Food of Middle Eastern Appearance

Fresh, defiantly inauthentic Middle Eastern-inspired recipes that are once both delicious and cliché free.

Author chef Joseph Abboud thinks of food as a conduit to greater things and presents it here in Rumi with much love and not much sentiment.

The recipes - some non-negotiable restaurant favourites and others riffs on classics (fattoush for every season, or broccoli tabbouleh, for example) - are delivered as both inspiration and a jumping off point for myriad variations. Whether it’s Joe’s yoghurt, his taratoor, or toum, he empowers cooks to take and trust their own path. Alongside more than 60 recipes that cover off on vegetables, grains, salads, meat and sweet things, Joe talks barbecues, spice, the perfect dressing, cooking with nuts and the secrets to a very good sandwich.

Joseph Abboud is one of Australia’s best regarded Middle Eastern chefs. An alumni of some of Melbourne’s finest restaurants (Ondine, Est Est Est, Circa), he has both an affinity with the food of his parents’ homeland and classic training in high-end kitchens. He has a reputation for cooking humble yet cultured new Middle Eastern food. Joe says that as a kid, food was not something his family ever spoke about. But it was there, and it was good and it bound them. In a rare sentimental indulgence, he says of his parents: Every day I build my life on their sacrifice. Today, Joe’s wife Natalie looks after prep at Rumi in the morning. His oldest son helps out washing dishes after school. And his 75-year-old dad comes in to peel garlic, pick herbs and trim the whiskers off the prawns in the afternoon.