The Palestinian Sisters’ Musakhan

✨ Before We Begin…

Flatbreads layered with onions, sumac, and chickpeas — a dish of warmth and history.

‘Must be best food offer, of any genre, in Kendal. Hugely accomplished cooking and very much recommended.’
Tony P, Kendal; Food Customer

The Cook’s Mind

What This Recipe Helps You Practise

• Caramelising onions with spices.
• Toasting flatbread crisp.
• Balancing sumac’s tang.

Make-Ahead

• Onions can be cooked ahead.

Freezer-Friendly

• Not freezer friendly.
• Best eaten freshly assembled.

Key Substitutions

• Chickpeas: use lentils instead.
• Naan: swap for pita.

Cooking Parlance

• Sumac: tangy spice from dried berries.
• Caramelise: cook onions until golden.

Ingredient Focus

✨ Sumac — tangy, deep, and bright.

To Ingredient Focus: Sumac

Serving Suggestions

• Serve with yoghurt-style dip.
• Add salad on side.

Multi-Purpose Recipe

This recipe has more than one life…

• Roll into wraps.
• Use as party sharing dish.
• Use the battered cauliflower with a dip, and forget the rest of the dish!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Tangy, hearty, cultural.
• Layers of flavour and meaning.
• Perfect for sharing.

Handpicked to Go With This One

A few recipes that play well together — flavour friends, not just neighbours.

• West Sumatran Rendang
• Magic Beet and Black Bean Hummus: A Fantastical Plant-Based Delight
• Red Apple, Walnut and Sultana Salad with Dried Lime and Clove Dressing
• The Flavour Master Himself: Ottolenghi’s Falafel Done In An Air Fryer

Waste Less: How To Use Up Your Ingredient Stash!

Got something spare — a handful, a spoonful, or the end of a packet? These tags help you find other ways to use it. It’s a small step toward cooking intuitively and wasting less ❣️

The Palestinian Sisters’ Musakhan Recipe

The Palestinian Sisters’ Musakhan

Julia Savory

Born from a conversation with two wonderful sisters I met through Airbnb, this dish captures warmth and generosity. Sumac-spiced, tender, and full of flavour, it’s the kind of food you want to make again and again for friends. A recipe with heart and heritage.

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Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.

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Prep Time 40 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr

Course Dinner, Main

Cuisine Drawn from Persian and Eastern Mediterranean influences

Servings 3 servings

Calories/Seving 619 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

Ingredients for the batter

• 180 ml soya milk
• 1½ tsp ground black pepper
• 1½ tsp salt
• 5 g golden caster sugar
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sumac
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• 95 g plain flour
• 2 cloves fresh garlic | finely minced or grated

Vegetables

• 300 g cauliflower
• 300 g red onion | unpeeled weight
• 200 g aubergine | uncooked weight
• 20 g fresh parsley
• 80 g green olives
• 40 g preserved lemon

Other ingredients

• 10 ml olive oil
• 1 tsp sumac
• ¼ tsp ground allspice
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• 15 ml lemon juice
• rapeseed oil | a pan with 1cm oil for frying the cauliflower chunks
• 30 g hummus

To serve

• 270 naan bread | a piece for each person weighing approx 90g
• fresh lemon | wedges and zest to squeeze and dress
• 9 g slivered almonds

Contact Julia Direct

Instructions

 

Prepare the batter

• Put all the batter ingredients into a tub, whisk with a whisk and leave to one side to thicken up. It will sit in the fridge for a day or two if you need to do it in advance.
  1½ tsp ground black pepper, 1½ tsp salt, 5 g golden caster sugar, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp sumac, ½ tsp ground allspice, 95 g plain flour, 180 ml soya milk, 2 cloves fresh garlic

Prepare the veggies

• Cut the cauliflower into chunks.

  Peel and cut the onions into slender petals

  Slice the aubergine on the diagonal
  300 g cauliflower, 300 g red onion, 200 g aubergine

Make the parsley salad

• Small dice chop the flat leaf parsley, olives and preserved lemon; mix.
  20 g fresh parsley, 80 g green olives, 40 g preserved lemon

Cook the aubergine, onions, cauliflower

• Cook the aubergine slices in a hot pan without oil, and put into a plastic tub and pop a lid on. Look carefully at the video to see when the slices are done. You’re looking for colour but not that awful watery translucent look.
• Cook the onions in a pan with the sumac, allspice, salt and pepper.
  10 ml olive oil, 1 tsp sumac, ¼ tsp ground allspice, ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• During the cooking of the onions, put the cauliflower in the pan to char and pick up flavour from the onions.
• When the onions are done and the cauliflower is charred a little, add the lemon juice to deglaze the pan and to make the flavours sing.
  15 ml lemon juice
• Lift the cauliflower chunks out from the onions. Leave the onions in the pan to keep warm (pop a lid on).

Cook the battered cauliflower

• Put the cauliflower chunks into the batter and mix thoroughly.
• Heat a fry pan with 1cm of oil and wait until the oil is hot. Put the cauliflower pieces into the oil and cook until toasty brown and a good colour. About 8 mins total.
  rapeseed oil
• Leave well alone and clear up rather than fiddle but they need turning after 4 mins.

Plate

• Warm your naan bread and get your hummus and blanched almonds ready to go. Chop lemon wedges ready.
  270 naan bread, 30 g hummus
• Layer in this order: naan bread, hummus, aubergine slices, onions, cauliflower pieces, onions, blanched almonds, parsley salad, lemon wedge and finally lemon zest.
  fresh lemon , 9 g slivered almonds

Notes

• Multi-purpose: use the cauliflower and batter technique and serve as no-chicken buffalo wings.
• Choice of naan bread: you need good thick flatbread. Flour tortillas or chapatti style breads won’t work. Remember when choosing that you are using the bread like a pizza base.
• Any remaining herbs: chop up and put into storage boxes and pop into the fridge. I find supermarket herbs prepped and stored this way last a fair few days.
• The batter keeps OK in the fridge if you make it in advance
• This meal doesn’t reheat well. Make it eat it!

Nutrition

Calories: 619kcalCarbohydrates: 95gProtein: 18gFat: 19gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 2gMonounsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 7mgSodium: 2517mgPotassium: 856mgFiber: 11gSugar: 16gVitamin A: 940IUVitamin C: 73mgCalcium: 251mgIron: 4mg

Nutritional values are estimates only and will vary depending on specific ingredients used. Nutrition is per serving. Information is for the main recipe, not optional accompaniments.

Keywords battered cauliflower, palestinian musakhan, vegan musakhan

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COPYRIGHT

© The Golden Polar Bear, 2025. Recipes and photography by Julia Savory. If you share this, please pass it along with kindness and if possible share a link back to this site. #ForTheAnimals

Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.

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Totally recommend the cookery course. The meals are really tasty and full of flavour (not like most of the vegan mush I make for myself).
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