Lebanese dishes in the UK

Shawarma is marinated meat stacked on a vertical spit, roasted and shaved thin, wrapped in flatbread with tahini or garlic sauce, pickles and salad. The Levantine cousin of the doner and the gyro, it is the great Middle Eastern street food. Lebanese shawarma is typically chicken with toum (garlic sauce) or lamb with tarator (tahini).

Shish taouk is Lebanese grilled chicken: cubes of chicken marinated in garlic, lemon and yoghurt, skewered and grilled over charcoal, served with toum, pickles and flatbread. Juicy, garlicky and charred, it is the chicken counterpart to lamb kebab and one of the most ordered grills on the Lebanese menu.

Kofta (kafta) is Lebanese spiced lamb mince, kneaded with onion, parsley and seven-spice, shaped on skewers and grilled over charcoal, or baked with tomato and potato. Juicy, herby and fragrant, it is the lamb centrepiece of the Lebanese grill and a versatile base for baked dishes too.

Hummus is a purée of chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic, the cornerstone of the Lebanese table. The good version is smooth, generous with tahini and lemon, and warm-savoury rather than the thick, bland supermarket kind. Served with a pool of olive oil and warm flatbread, it is the first thing to judge a Lebanese kitchen by.

Tabbouleh is a parsley salad, finely chopped, with bulgur, tomato, mint, spring onion, lemon and olive oil. Despite the Western version, it is a herb salad first and a grain salad a distant second: it should be overwhelmingly green, the bulgur a minor player. Bright, sharp and fresh, it is one of the essential Lebanese mezze.

Fattoush is a Levantine bread salad of crisp fried or toasted flatbread, tomato, cucumber, radish, herbs and a sumac-and-pomegranate dressing. Sharp, crunchy and tangy, it is the other great Lebanese salad alongside tabbouleh, using up stale bread and defined by the sourness of sumac.

Kibbeh is the national dish of Lebanon: a shell of bulgur and minced lamb around a filling of spiced lamb and pine nuts, most famously deep-fried into torpedo-shaped croquettes. There are dozens of forms, from raw (kibbeh nayyeh) to baked in a tray, but the fried kibbeh is the one on every UK mezze table. Getting the thin, crisp shell right is the test of a cook.

Baba ganoush is a smoky aubergine dip, the flesh of charred aubergines mashed with tahini, lemon and garlic. Smoky, creamy and tangy, it is one of the essential Lebanese mezze and, with hummus, the pair that tells you whether a kitchen chars its aubergines over flame or takes the easy oven route. The smoke is the point.

Moutabal is a smooth, smoky aubergine dip rich with tahini, lemon and garlic, the silkier tahini-heavy cousin of baba ganoush. Charred aubergine gives the smoke, tahini the creaminess, and a sharp lemon-garlic lift cuts through. It is one of the cold mezze that show whether a Lebanese kitchen chars over flame.

Fatteh is a layered dish of crisp fried flatbread, chickpeas, garlic yoghurt and toasted nuts, assembled warm so the bread softens where it meets the yoghurt. A Levantine comfort dish eaten at breakfast or as a mezze, it is built from humble parts into something rich and satisfying. The name, like fattoush, comes from crumbled bread.

Lebanese baklava is layered filo pastry with nuts (often pistachio, walnut or cashew) and a syrup scented with orange-blossom or rose water, cut into small diamonds or fingers. Lighter on syrup and often more floral than some other traditions, it is the sweet of the Levantine table, eaten in small pieces with Arabic coffee.