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The Mediterranean Recipe

Authentic Flavors from a Mediterranean Kitchen

Avatar of Ines ZahraouiInes Zahraoui

Ines Zahraoui is a Tunisian home cook and the co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, which she runs with her friend Rachel Mazza in the United States. She was born and raised in Mahdia, a coastal town in Tunisia, where everyday cooking was built on olive oil, seafood, semolina and whatever the market had that morning. She later lived in France, where she studied literature and picked up the French side of her cooking, and her kitchen took on a Moroccan accent after marrying her husband, Abdel Ali, whose family taught her the spice work — ras el hanout, preserved lemon, slow-cooked tagines — that runs through much of the site.She has been cooking and developing recipes since 2020. She is not a professionally trained chef: she teaches French for a living and cooks for her family, which is why the recipes here are written for home kitchens and ordinary home equipment rather than restaurant ones.Ines writes and tests the recipes published under her byline in her own kitchen in Tunisia. Nutrition figures on the site are calculated with the WP Recipe Maker nutrition calculator and are estimates rather than lab-verified values.
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Halloween churros shaped like witch brooms standing in a dark cup beside a bowl of thick chocolate

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Churros are ridged for a reason, and it is not decoration. Those grooves increase the surface area exposed to oil, which creates more crisp edges. They may … Read more

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Six ghost cannoli with chocolate chip eyes and powdered sugar on a dark slate board

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → I am going to tell you to buy the shells, which is not the sort of thing a recipe site is supposed to say. Making ghost cannoli … Read more

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Witch finger breadsticks with almond nails and za’atar crust standing in a dark jar

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Every witch finger recipe I have made from the internet has told me to stick the almond nails on afterwards, with cream cheese or melted chocolate or … Read more

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Halloween soup shooters: rows of chilled red pepper soup in shot glasses with white yoghurt swirls on a dark tray

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Twenty small glasses of deep red on a dark tray, carried into a candlelit room, create the visual for these Halloween soup shooters. The recipe uses everyday … Read more

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A wide bowl of jet-black squid ink pasta linguine with parsley, chilli and lemon zest

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → This is a real dish, this is real squid ink pasta. I want to say that first, because black pasta turns up every October dressed as a … Read more

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A dark tray of roasted Medjool dates stuffed with goat cheese and finely grated halloumi, each wrapped in crisp pale phyllo ribbons with a small gap and two tiny black olive eyes in the Mummy-Wrapped Dates with Crisp Phyllo Bandages article.

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Every party has one thing that vanishes before anyone reaches the table: these mummy-wrapped dates. For about eight years running, at my house, it has been these. … Read more

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A wide shallow platter of silky beige hummus with thin white labneh rings dragged outward into a clean spider web, olive oil pooled around the rim and toasted chickpeas scattered sparingly in the Spider-Web Hummus Platter article.

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → I am going to be straight with you: spider-web hummus is not an original idea. There are thousands of spider-web hummus platters online and you have seen … Read more

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Six small ceramic bowls of smoky grey baba ganoush styled as different monster faces with olive pupils, radish whites, pepper mouths and cucumber ribbons for Monster Baba Ganoush Bowls.

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → Almost all bad baba ganoush is bad for exactly one reason, and it is not the tahini. You did not burn the eggplant enough. Not roasted, not … Read more

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A pale shallow bowl of intensely saturated magenta beetroot dip with a deep spoon groove, olive oil in the channel, chopped walnuts, dill and a little crumbled feta in the Pantzarosalata Blood-Magenta Beet Dip article.

Written by Ines Zahraoui — Tunisian home cook and co-founder of The Mediterranean Recipe, developing and testing recipes in her own kitchen since 2020. More about Ines → There is no bottle of anything that makes this colour. Beetroot produces a magenta so saturated it looks lit from inside — somewhere between arterial and neon, … Read more

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