[Sca-cooks] looking for za'atar

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

From: "K Francis" <baronesskay at hotmail.com>
>Anyone here ever grow or cook with za'atar?  It is a North African herb.

We had a discussion of it over a year ago on list. You can find many
of the messages at:
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-CONDIMENTS/za-atar-msg.html

AFAIK, zaatar is used much more in Levantine cuisine than in Maghribi
- how much zaatar is used in Egyptian or Libyan cuisine, i don't
know, as i haven't been studying either of them recently.

In my experience, it's rather difficult to find pure zaatar. What i
most often find in shops is the Levantine blend of zaatar herb,
sesame seeds, sumac, and salt. Tasty if you dip some flat bread in
olive oil and then in the zaatar. I often bring it to events to have
at lunch, along with some homemade dukkah, another
similar-but-different blend from Egypt (hazelnuts, sesame seeds,
coriander, cumin, pepper, salt).

Since it's real hard to find zaatar by itself, i asked a friend of
mine of Lebanese origin about it. She says that she was told that
"Greek oregano" is either zaatar or very close to it. I found "Greek
oregano" in a shop around here (San Francisco East Bay) recently. It
isn't the regular oregano one finds, which is, IIRC, "Mexican
oregano" - Greek oregano has a nicer and less coarse flavor.

If you got zaatar in that nifty spice gift packet you told me about,
do check to see if you have the blend or the pure herb. If you have
the pure herb, uh, well, i'd love to get a little bit... If it's the
blend, i've got a bunch, gift of a local Near Eastern merchant who
was surprised that a person like myself (not of Near Eastern origin,
at least not anytime recently) would actually know what it was :-)

One of my Near Eastern cookbooks recommends blending thyme and
marjoram and possibly a little of the "standard" oregano to
approximate pure zaatar herb.

Anahita