Number7 came round for an evening of neutral partisanship, where we celebrated Liverpool's (eventual) win against Chelsea, and the joys of Arab food. For some reason I decided to slightly supermarket-ize some of the dishes, so in a hommage to Tesco's in house dips rather than to authenticity, I made lemon, coriander and chilli houmous. This was slightly complicated by the smoke that started coming from my blender whilst the mix was being cut which, unfortunately, gave the houmous a rather rough, 1970s dinner party sort of feel. Rather better was the tabbouleh which I made with Number7 in mind, for it was she who first alerted me to the value of adding almost no bulgar wheat to the mix. It was zingy which was good. I also made some yoghurt and cucumber, as you do, and we had sides of many pickles from a Turkish shop and lots of toasted mini pitta, plus olives and chunks of feta. There's something pretty satisfying, and aesthetically pleasing, about loading up a big plate of mezze and the colourfulness of the combination of dishes is part of the pleasure and an indication of the underlying healthiness of much Arab food.
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