Spices in Levantine cooking

A defining combination in Moroccan tagines, Levantine rice-and-lamb dishes and Greek cooking. Cinnamon's sweetness balances lamb's fat and its slightly gamey character in a way that no Western pairing convention would predict.

Add alongside: Cumin, Apple, Saffron

Coriander's citrus character suits fish naturally and is light enough not to bury it. A standard component of Levantine and North African fish spicing.

Add alongside: Cumin, Garlic

Prawns and cumin recur from Goa to Veracruz to the eastern Mediterranean. Prawns are sweet and cook in two minutes, so the cumin has to be bloomed in the fat before they go in — added afterwards it tastes raw and dusty against them.

How: Bloomed in oil or butter before the prawns are added

Add alongside: Garlic, Coriander seed, Lemon

Cauliflower browns to something nutty and faintly sulphurous, and coriander seed's citric lift is the cleanest counter to the sulphur. It works where a heavier spice would simply pile on top.

Add alongside: Cumin, Turmeric, Lemon

Shakshuka, huevos rancheros, devilled eggs and Spanish tortilla all land here. Egg yolk fat carries the fat-soluble carotenoids well, so paprika colours and flavours in one step — but it must go into the oil or the sauce first, because sprinkled on at the end it is raw.

Add alongside: Onion, Tomato, Cumin

Aubergine is spongy and absorbs fat readily, which makes it an efficient carrier for anything bloomed in oil. Cumin is the base note from baba ganoush through baingan bharta to Sichuan yuxiang aubergine — three traditions that agree without contact.

Add alongside: Garlic, Coriander seed, Sesame seed

Roast aubergine is rich and slightly flat, and it wants acid rather than more depth. Sumac supplies sourness without liquid, which is the whole reason it exists as a seasoning and why a squeeze of lemon is not the same thing.

Add alongside: Sesame seed, Garlic, Yoghurt

Saag in its many forms. Spinach is mineral and slightly bitter, and cumin bloomed in fat gives it a base to sit on — without it, spiced spinach tastes green and thin.

Add alongside: Garlic, Turmeric, Chilli powder

Coriander seed is citric in its own right, so it amplifies orange rather than contrasting with it. Useful in marinades and cures where the orange would otherwise fade during cooking.

Add alongside: Fennel seed, Black pepper, Cumin

Sumac over labneh or thick yoghurt is standard Levantine practice. Yoghurt is already sour, so this is not acid on acid — sumac is fruity and tannic where yoghurt is lactic, and the two sournesses are distinguishable.

Add alongside: Mint, Sesame seed, Garlic

The Levantine answer, and a different idea from the European one. Spinach fatayer are seasoned with sumac and onion rather than with dairy: the sourness cuts the mineral edge directly instead of smoothing it over with fat.

Add alongside: Onion, Sesame seed, Black pepper

The Levantine treatment, and a corrective to thinking of allspice as a pudding spice. In mujaddara and stuffed vegetables it sits with cumin and cinnamon as a savoury warm note, which is how most of the world outside Britain uses it.

Add alongside: Cumin, Cinnamon (Ceylon), Onion

Roast broccoli browns to something nutty, and cumin is the earthy note that meets it there. On steamed broccoli the same quantity reads as heavy — this is a pairing that depends on the cooking method more than most.

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Chilli flakes

Lentil, bean and squash soups across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia all reach for it, and the reason is structural: a puréed soup is smooth and one-note, and cumin gives it a base to sit on. Bloom it in the fat before the liquid — added to the pot late it tastes raw for the whole meal.

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Turmeric

Aloo gobi and roast spiced cauliflower are both built on it. Cauliflower browns well, and the browned flavours stand up to turmeric's bitterness in a way that boiled cauliflower does not.

Add alongside: Cumin, Cayenne pepper, Coriander seed

A North African standard — carrot salads and roast carrots with cumin appear across Morocco and the Levant. The carrot's sweetness and cumin's earthiness are a direct complement.

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Mint

Hummus, falafel and chana masala all rest on it. Chickpeas are nutty and substantial enough to carry cumin at higher concentrations than most vegetables.

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Paprika

Cardamom coffee is the standard preparation across the Arabian Peninsula, not a variation on it. Cardamom's cooling eucalyptus character cuts coffee's bitterness, and both are aromatically intense enough to hold their own.

How: Pods ground with the beans, or added to the pot

Add alongside: Saffron, Cloves

A standard of Turkish and Levantine grill cooking. Lamb fat is rich and distinctly flavoured, and sumac cuts it with clean acidity at the moment of eating — applied at the table rather than during cooking, which is the part that matters. A wet acid would not survive the grill or would steam the surface.

How: Dusted over grilled lamb after cooking; Shaken over the raw onion served alongside

Add alongside: Onion, Parsley, Black pepper

• Sumac loses colour and brightness under heat, so this is a finishing pairing rather than a marinade one.
• Salted commercial sumac will season the meat as well as sour it, and the salt in the rest of the dish should be reduced accordingly.

Sumac-dressed raw onion is a fixed accompaniment in Turkish and Palestinian cooking rather than a suggestion. The acidity tempers the harshness of raw onion — the same effect a vinegar soak has — while adding no water, so the onion stays crisp instead of going limp.

How: Thinly sliced onion tossed with sumac and left briefly before serving; Musakhan, where sumac-heavy onions are the body of the dish

Add alongside: Parsley

• Left too long the onion still softens; the dryness of sumac slows this but does not prevent it.

One of the clearest cases in the dataset of a pairing that exists for a textural reason as much as a flavour one.

Chickpeas are starchy, mild and slightly sweet, and readily taste flat. Sumac supplies acidity and colour on the surface, where it is tasted first, without thinning a purée the way lemon juice would.

How: Dusted over hummus with olive oil; Tossed through roasted chickpeas

Add alongside: Cumin, Sesame seed

• Stirring sumac into a purée rather than dusting it over the top loses both the colour contrast and most of the impact.

A Levantine and Turkish combination of an earthy base with a bright dry acid on top. They occupy entirely different parts of the palate — cumin is warm and low, sumac is sharp and high — so they layer rather than compete, which is why both appear in the same blends and on the same grilled plate.

Add alongside: Thyme, Sesame seed, Black pepper

• Cumin belongs in the cooking and sumac belongs at the end. Adding sumac early alongside the cumin wastes it.

A traditional pairing across Turkey and the Levant, in white cheeses rolled in the seed and in cheese-filled pastries. The peppery herbal note reads against a salty fresh cheese much as cracked pepper does, and the crunch is a real part of the effect.

How: Pressed onto the outside of a fresh white cheese; In the seed mix on a cheese börek

Add alongside: Za'atar herb, Sumac

• Uncooked here, which is the exception to the usual rule — on a cheese the raw seed is doing textural work and a toasted one goes soft.

Sourness is what oily fish wants, and sumac supplies it dry — so it can be scattered on at the end without softening a crust or thinning a dressing. It is a Levantine habit that transfers well to a seared steak.

How: Scattered over seared tuna with olive oil; In a dry rub with thyme and sesame

Add alongside: Za'atar herb, Sesame seed, Onion

Sourness is the other thing courgette wants, and sumac supplies it dry — which matters here more than usual, because courgette is already releasing water and a wet acid makes the problem worse.

How: Scattered over griddled courgette with yoghurt; In a courgette and herb salad

Add alongside: Yoghurt, Mint, Garlic

Fresh white cheese and labneh with za’atar and olive oil is a Levantine breakfast, and the pairing works because the herb is dry and astringent where the cheese is soft and lactic. The oil is not optional — it carries the aromatics that the dry leaf will not release on its own.

How: Scattered over labneh with olive oil; Pressed onto a fresh white cheese

Add alongside: Sumac, Sesame seed, Garlic

Recorded for the wider category of plain starches rather than for pasta specifically. Za’atar herb is at its best on something bland with fat and salt, and a plain wheat base — bread above all, but noodles and grains too — is exactly that.

How: Stirred into olive oil and tossed through; With lemon and olive oil on a grain salad

Add alongside: Lemon, Sesame seed, Garlic

Rubbed onto chicken with olive oil before roasting, which is standard across the Levant. The herb is robust enough for oven heat and the chicken fat carries it, so it behaves quite differently here from a delicate herb that would scorch.

How: In an olive oil rub before roasting; Scattered over grilled chicken with lemon

Add alongside: Sumac, Lemon, Garlic

Tomato and za’atar is a standard Levantine salad combination, and it is a relative of the Italian tomato-and-oregano pairing rather than a coincidence — these are close species doing the same job. The Levantine herb is drier and less sweet, which suits a raw tomato better than a cooked one.

How: On a raw tomato and cucumber salad; With olive oil over grilled tomatoes

Add alongside: Onion, Lemon, Sumac

The pairing the za’atar blend is built on, and the two do opposite jobs rather than reinforcing one another. The herb is savoury, dry and faintly bitter; sumac is sour and fruity. Neither carries the blend alone — the herb without sumac tastes flat and slightly dusty, sumac without the herb tastes merely sour — and the sesame that joins them supplies the fat and the body.

How: Together in a za’atar blend with toasted sesame; Both scattered over labneh, flatbread or roast vegetables

Add alongside: Sesame seed, Salt, Lemon

• The proportion matters more than the presence: sumac dominates quickly, and a blend that tastes sharp rather than herbal usually has too much of it.

The pairing the Levantine grill runs on. Lamb is fatty and strongly flavoured and can carry a spice used generously, which is exactly what Aleppo pepper is for — its moderate fruity heat seasons the meat rather than sharpening it, and the fat carries the fat-soluble capsaicin and carotenoids through.

How: In a rub for kofte and kebabs; Stirred into melted butter and poured over grilled lamb

Add alongside: Cumin, Sumac, Onion

Both are sweet, acidic and red, and the spice deepens the tomato rather than contrasting with it. Muhammara and the Turkish red pepper pastes are built on this, and it is why Aleppo pepper suits a tomato sauce where a hotter flake would simply sit on top of it.

How: In muhammara with walnut and pomegranate; Warmed in oil at the start of a tomato sauce

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Mint

Eggs are rich and mild and take a visible finishing spice well. Scattered over fried or poached eggs with butter or oil, Aleppo pepper gives colour, a slow warmth and a fruitiness that ordinary chilli flakes cannot.

How: In the butter poured over Turkish poached eggs; Scattered over fried eggs with yoghurt

Add alongside: Yoghurt, Mint, Sumac

Aubergine absorbs fat and needs something with body to season it rather than something merely hot. The fruitiness reads through the richness where a sharper chilli would be lost in it.

How: In the oil before roasting; Scattered over a smoked aubergine dip

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Yoghurt

Recorded for enriched dough generally, which is where mahleb lives. Tsoureki, choereg and kahk are all egg-and-butter doughs, and the pairing is structural rather than decorative: an enriched sweet dough is rich and one-dimensional, and mahleb’s bitterness gives it something to push against. A bread made without it tastes flat rather than merely less almondy.

How: Ground into an enriched Easter bread dough; In choereg and other sweet breads

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Aniseed, Orange

• Grind it fresh — the gap between freshly ground and shop-ground mahleb is unusually wide, because the oil carrying the aroma is also what goes rancid.

Levantine cheese pastries use mahleb in the dough, where its almond-and-cherry note works against a salty fresh cheese much as a nut would. It is one of the few contexts in which the spice appears in savoury baking rather than sweet.

How: In the dough for cheese-filled pastries; In savoury breads with sesame

Add alongside: Sesame seed, Nigella, Black pepper

Recorded because the relationship is the whole logic of the spice. Mahleb is bitter and is used almost exclusively in sweet doughs and fillings — maamoul and kahk are very sweet, and the bitterness is what stops them cloying. Sugar and mahleb are not a flavour affinity so much as a balance the tradition depends on.

How: In maamoul and kahk fillings; In sweet enriched breads with a sugar glaze

Add alongside: Orange, Green cardamom, Sesame seed

Citrus zest is a standing partner in the same doughs, and the two work because they occupy different registers — mahleb is nutty and bitter, orange zest bright and floral, and together they give an enriched bread more dimension than either alone.

How: Zest and ground mahleb together in a tsoureki dough; In festival biscuit fillings

Add alongside: Aniseed, Green cardamom, Sugar

About as close to universal as a pairing gets, and the reason is that chicken is mild enough to take the whole range garlic offers. The same bird accepts raw garlic pounded into a Levantine toum, whole cloves roasted to sweetness under it, and sliced garlic browned in the fat — three different flavours from one ingredient, and chicken is unassertive enough not to argue with any of them.

How: Whole unpeeled cloves roasted in the tin, squeezed out at the end; Pounded raw with salt and oil as a toum; Sliced and browned in the fat before the chicken goes in

Add alongside: Thyme, Paprika, Lemon

• Sliced garlic in hot fat goes from golden to bitter in well under a minute, and burnt garlic cannot be recovered from a dish.

The base of an enormous amount of Mediterranean cooking, and the mechanism is acid against pungency. Tomato is sharp and sweet; garlic supplies the savoury floor underneath it. Long cooking suits the pair particularly well, because tomato needs time to lose its rawness and garlic mellows into sweetness over the same period.

How: Sliced into oil before the tomatoes, cooked gently; Whole crushed cloves in a long sauce, removed before serving

Add alongside: Basil, Oregano, Chilli flakes

Lentils are earthy and almost sweet and have very little aromatic character of their own, so they take a savoury base readily. Fried onion is the standard one from France to Bengal — in a dal it is often the finishing tarka as well as the base, and browned onion over rice and lentils is a dish in itself in Egypt and the Levant.

How: Browned and stirred through cooked lentils as a finish; Crisp-fried as a garnish over rice and lentils

Add alongside: Cumin, Asafoetida, Turmeric

Not a flavour pairing but a working one, and it appears twice. Mastic is sticky at room temperature and will gum up a mill, so it is pounded with a pinch of sugar which keeps the powder separate — the standard technique across Greek and Levantine kitchens. And in loukoumi and lokum the sugar syrup is the medium the resin sets into, where its elasticity is the defining texture of the sweet.

How: Pounded with a pinch of sugar to grind it; Dissolved into the syrup for loukoumi and lokum

Add alongside: Lemon, Green cardamom

• Take the sugar used for grinding from the recipe rather than adding it, or a delicate dessert ends up sweeter than intended.

Citrus is the standing partner for mastic across the Aegean and the Levant, and orange blossom in particular appears with it in the same breads and puddings. The pairing works because both are aromatic without being sweet: the resin supplies pine and a cooling edge, the citrus supplies brightness, and neither is competing for the sweetness the sugar is already providing.

How: With orange blossom water in milk puddings and spoon sweets; Zest and ground mastic together in an enriched bread

Add alongside: Mahleb, Sugar, Green cardamom

A pairing two entirely separate traditions arrived at: British mint sauce with roast lamb, and the mint that goes through kofte, kebab and lamb dishes across Türkiye, the Levant and Iran. The mechanism is the same in both — lamb fat is heavy and distinctive, and mint’s cooling quality reads as relief rather than as competition.

How: Chopped fresh with vinegar and sugar as a sauce; Dried mint rubbed into a kofte mixture

Add alongside: Cumin, Sumac, Black pepper

• Dried and fresh mint are used for different dishes here. Dried belongs in the kofte; fresh belongs in the sauce.

Cacık, tzatziki, raita and dozens of relatives across the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia. Yoghurt is sour, cold and fatty, and mint’s cooling menthol-adjacent quality compounds rather than contradicts it — one of the few pairings that works by agreement rather than by contrast.

How: Dried mint stirred through with garlic and cucumber; Fresh mint chopped into raita

Add alongside: Cumin, Garlic, Black salt

Chickpeas are dense, starchy and faintly nutty with no aromatic profile to speak of, which leaves a herb free rein. Mint appears with them across the Levant and Iran, in salads, in stews and scattered over hummus, and it lifts a heavy ingredient in a way parsley does more quietly.

How: Fresh mint in a chickpea salad with lemon; Dried mint through a chickpea and lentil soup

Add alongside: Cumin, Sumac, Lemon

Earthy against cooling, and used together across Türkiye, the Levant, Iran and South Asia in kofte, yoghurt sauces, chutneys and lentil dishes. Cumin fills the low end and mint the high, and neither obscures the other.

How: Together in a kofte or kebab mixture; In a mint chutney with green chilli

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Chilli flakes

Moroccan mint tea is green tea rather than black, and mint is drunk with black tea across Türkiye, Iran and the Levant as well. Tannin is astringent and drying; mint is cooling and sweet, and the sugar that usually accompanies both is doing structural work rather than merely sweetening.

How: A large bunch of spearmint steeped with tea and sugar; A sprig dropped into a glass

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Sugar

• Spearmint, not peppermint. The menthol in peppermint makes a much harsher drink.

Gremolata is chopped parsley, lemon zest and garlic, and it exists to be thrown at something heavy — osso buco, a braise, a rich stew — at the last moment. Parsley’s clean grassiness and lemon’s acidity do the same job by different routes, and together they reset a palate that a two-hour braise has flattened.

How: Gremolata over a braise; Through a tabbouleh with bulgur and tomato

Add alongside: Garlic, Sumac, Black pepper

• Chop the parsley at the last minute. Chopped and left, it goes bitter and dark within the hour.

Falafel is chickpeas and herbs, and across the Levant parsley is used with pulses in quantities that make it an ingredient rather than a seasoning. It works because chickpeas are heavy and quiet and parsley is light and quiet: it lifts without asserting, which a stronger herb could not do at that volume.

How: Blended raw into a falafel mixture; Through a chickpea salad with lemon and onion

Add alongside: Cumin, Coriander seed, Lemon

Persillade in France, gremolata in Italy, and the base of chimichurri in Argentina — three cuisines arriving at chopped parsley and raw garlic independently. Raw garlic is sharp and lingering, and parsley is the herb best suited to standing up to it without adding a competing aroma of its own.

How: Persillade stirred into a pan at the end; Chimichurri with oregano, vinegar and oil

Add alongside: Lemon, Oregano, Chilli flakes

The Levantine finishing pair: sumac supplies a fruity acidity without liquid, parsley supplies green freshness, and both go on at the end of a dish rather than into it. Fattoush and a dozen salads are built on the combination.

How: Over a fattoush or a tomato and onion salad; Scattered on grilled meat with onion

Add alongside: Mint, Lemon, Za'atar herb

Earthy and cooked against citric and raw, and one of the most widely used combinations in the world — through Mexican, South Asian, Levantine and North African cooking. The two work in sequence rather than together: cumin goes in at the start and coriander leaf at the end, and the dish is bracketed by them.

How: Cumin bloomed at the start, coriander leaf scattered at the end; Together in a chutney or a salsa

Add alongside: Chilli flakes, Garlic, Lemon

The Persian and Mughlai pairing, and one of the most durable in this catalogue: advieh contains both, and so does a great deal of South Asian sweet cooking. Cardamom is camphorous and citric, rose is honeyed and floral, and together they read as a single perfume rather than as two spices.

How: Together in advieh; Infused into milk for a firni or a kheer

Add alongside: Saffron, Cinnamon (Ceylon), Yoghurt

Rose through yoghurt and milk puddings runs from Iran through the Levant to South Asia — muhallebi, firni, doogh, lassi. Dairy fat carries the rose alcohols and the sourness stops the perfume becoming cloying, which is the same relationship that makes rose work with cream and not with water.

How: Petals infused into warm milk and strained; Ground rose stirred through a yoghurt drink

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Saffron, Sugar

Coriander seed is sweet, citric and floral, and it is one of the few spices that genuinely softens chilli heat rather than merely sitting beside it — the sweetness gives the palate something else to attend to. The pair runs through North African harissa, South Asian masalas and pickling spice, and coriander is usually the larger share.

How: Toasted together and ground for a harissa or a dry rub; Both whole in a pickling brine

Add alongside: Cumin, Garlic, Caraway

• Coriander seed loses its top notes quickly once ground, and a stale one softens nothing.

Chimichurri is the clearest case: parsley in bulk, oregano in small proportion, garlic, vinegar and oil. Parsley is quiet and green and can be used by the handful; oregano is loud and medicinal and cannot. The pairing works because their volumes are so different, which is the opposite of how most herb pairs work.

How: Chimichurri, with parsley as the bulk and oregano as the accent; Both dried in an Italian seasoning

Add alongside: Garlic, Chilli flakes, Lemon

• Equal quantities give an oregano sauce with parsley in it. The ratio is most of the recipe.

Salt raises the perceived intensity of aroma as well as of taste, and dried mint has a lot of aroma and almost no taste — which is why the two are combined directly in chaat masala, in Turkish table mixtures and in the salt-and-mint rubs used on kofte. It is also why unsalted mint yoghurt tastes of nothing much.

How: Ground together in a chaat masala; Rubbed into a kofte mixture with the salt

Add alongside: Cumin, Black salt, Sumac

The savoury route rather than the sweet one. Cumin is earthy and musky, and against squash it does what it does against sweet potato and carrot — it stops a sweet vegetable reading as dessert. Middle Eastern and South Asian squash cooking uses it far more than it uses cinnamon.

How: Bloomed in oil before the squash goes in; With coriander seed and chilli in a roasting mix

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Chilli flakes, Garlic

Halloumi arrives salty and fatty and needs acid and aromatic lift rather than more savouriness. Za’atar supplies both — the herb’s resin and the sumac’s fruity acidity — and it is applied after grilling, because the surface is hot and dry enough to scorch a leaf.

How: Scattered over grilled halloumi with oil; With lemon and flatbread

Add alongside: Sumac, Mint, Lemon

• On after cooking. Za’atar on the pan is burnt sesame.

A Cypriot pairing of long standing — halloumi is traditionally made with dried mint pressed into the fold — and it works for the same reason mint works with yoghurt: a cooling green note against salt and fat.

How: Dried mint in the cheese itself, in the Cypriot tradition; Fresh mint scattered over after grilling with lemon

Add alongside: Sumac, Lemon

Sumac supplies acidity without liquid, which matters here: a squeeze of lemon on hot halloumi makes the surface soggy, and sumac does the same job dry. It is the reason the pairing appears across the Levant wherever the cheese is grilled rather than fried.

How: Scattered over hot halloumi straight off the grill

Add alongside: Za'atar herb, Mint, Black pepper

Fat and salt both blunt capsaicin, so halloumi takes more heat than its delicacy suggests. Aleppo pepper and Turkish pul biber are the traditional choices and are milder and fruitier than generic flakes, which suits a cheese that is already assertive.

How: With honey and chilli over grilled halloumi; In an oil poured over after cooking

Add alongside: Mint, Sumac, Honey

The Turkish and Levantine route. Cumin and dried mint through a lamb or beef mince is the identifying seasoning of köfte, and cumin does the same job here that it does in a lamb rub — its earthiness meets the branched-chain fatty acids in the fat rather than covering them.

How: Worked through a köfte mixture with dried mint; With onion and parsley in a lamb mince

Add alongside: Mint, Black pepper, Sumac

Scattered on naan, on Turkish pide and simit, on Levantine flatbreads and on bagels across the region. Nigella is used on the surface rather than in the dough, and it works there because the seed is hard and oily enough to toast rather than scorch at bread temperatures.

How: Scattered on the surface before baking; On naan straight out of the tandoor

Add alongside: Sesame seed, Salt, Za'atar herb

Manakish is flatbread dough spread with za’atar and oil and baked, and it is among the most widely eaten breakfasts in the Levant. The oil is not optional: it protects the herb and the sesame from the oven and carries the aromatics into the surface of the dough.

How: Mixed with oil and spread over flatbread dough before baking

Add alongside: Sumac, Sesame seed, Salt

• Dry za’atar on a hot surface burns. The oil is doing structural work.

Working with the earthiness rather than against it. Beetroot’s characteristic smell comes from geosmin, which is frankly earthy, and cumin is the most earthy spice on the shelf — so the pairing deepens the vegetable instead of arguing with it. Middle Eastern and South Asian beetroot cooking takes this route.

How: Bloomed in oil before roasted beetroot goes in; With coriander seed in a beetroot salad

Add alongside: Coriander seed, Garlic, Sumac

The Turkish technique of melting butter, stirring in urfa and pouring the lot over a yoghurt dish is the spice at its best. Fat carries the raisin and chocolate notes that dry flakes keep to themselves, the yoghurt’s acidity cuts the sweetness, and its coolness meets a heat that arrives late and stays low.

How: Bloomed in melted butter and poured over yoghurt or manti; Scattered over a yoghurt dip with olive oil

Add alongside: Mint, Garlic, Sumac

• Low heat. The sugars in urfa burn well before the butter does.

The pairing southeastern Türkiye is built on. Lamb fat is heavy and distinctive and urfa is sweet, dark and only moderately hot, so it deepens the meat rather than competing with it — which is why it is used by the tablespoon on a kebab where crushed red pepper would be used by the pinch.

How: Worked through a kofte or kebab mixture; Scattered over grilled lamb with sumac and onion

Add alongside: Cumin, Sumac, Mint

• The flakes carry salt. Season the mixture after adding them, not before.

Turkish lentil soup finished with a spiced butter is one of the most common uses of urfa in its home region. Lentils are earthy and aromatically quiet, urfa is dark and sweet, and the butter carries it — the same three-part logic as the yoghurt pairing, applied to a different base.

How: In the butter poured over mercimek çorbası; Stirred through a lentil salad with lemon

Add alongside: Mint, Cumin, Lemon

One of the most widely used herb pairs in the world and almost never thought about, because parsley is doing a structural job rather than a flavouring one: it supplies green, slightly bitter bulk that gives dill something to sit on. Georgian, Persian, Levantine, Russian and Scandinavian cooking all rely on it, most visibly in the Persian herb stews and in Georgian pkhali.

How: Both fresh and chopped, in enormous quantity; Both dried, in khmeli suneli

Add alongside: Mint, Coriander leaf

Two cooling herbs that cool differently — dill through a soft anise sweetness, mint through menthol, which acts on the trigeminal nerve rather than on taste. Because the mechanisms differ the effect stacks rather than duplicating, which is why the pair is standard in yoghurt preparations from Georgia through Turkey to the Levant.

How: Stirred into yoghurt with garlic; Both dried, in khmeli suneli

Add alongside: Garlic, Parsley

Oily fish and acid is the most reliable pairing in seafood cookery, and sumac is the Levantine way of getting acid onto something without adding liquid. Mackerel's oil oxidises fast and produces the flavours people call fishy; the sourness reads directly against them.

How: Dusted over grilled mackerel; With onion and parsley in a Turkish fish salad

One of very few pairings that appears independently in British, Levantine and North Indian cooking, and the mechanism is the same in all three: peas are sweet, menthol reads as cooling, and cooling against sugar is a combination that does not need a tradition to explain it. Added at the end, because peas cook in three minutes and mint in none.

How: Crushed with butter; In a chilled pea soup

A combination that turns up independently in American ranch, in Greek tzatziki, in Levantine yoghurt sauces and in eastern European pickling — and in every case with dairy or acid alongside. Dill is sweet and volatile, garlic heavy and sulphurous, and the acid is what stops the second overwhelming the first.

How: In ranch seasoning; In tzatziki; In a dill pickle brine

Add alongside: Chives, Black pepper

• Raw garlic against dill needs acid or dairy; without either it dominates