A table filled with small plates of cheese, olives, za’atar, assorted dips and spreads, fresh vegetable salads, pickles, warm bread, and a cruet of olive oil is a fine start to any meal, any time of day. Many of these dishes are best at room temperature, so it’s fairly easy to assemble an extravagant number of choices.
One mazzeh choice I’ve always loved is muhammara, but I hadn’t found a recipe I liked until Yotam Ottolenghi and his Palestinian partner Sami Tamimi published their cookbook Jerusalem.