Lebanon: vegan namoura

We have arrived in Lebanon on our vegan world tour and it is time to make some vegan namoura, a Lebanese semolina cake drenched in orange flavoured syrup. Choosing a dish to represent Lebanon with its many vegan and plant-forward dishes was a challenge! In the end, I went with a dessert I’ve never tried before. Vegan namoura is an easy-to-make, sweet semolina cake drenched in sugary syrup flavoured with orange blossom water or rose water. Read on to learn more about the Lebanese kitchen or jump straight to the recipe.

Lebanese cuisine

Lebanon is a small, West Asian country in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, sandwiched between Syria, Israel, and the sea. Lebanon’s cuisine is quite famous and you can often find a few Lebanese restaurants when traveling. The country’s cuisine heavily involves fresh herbs, lemon, grains like wheat and rice, bread, and lots of vegetables and legumes ​[1]–[4]​. While yogurt and meat from cows, goats and lamb are common, a large number of dishes are traditionally vegan or nearly vegan.

Lebanese dishes

Many of the dishes enjoyed in Lebanon are eaten throughout the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean region. You will recognize vegan all-time favourites like hummus and falalel along with classics like baba ghanoush (roasted eggplant dip), rice-filled grape leaves, tabouleh (bulgur and parsley ‘salad’), and rice-stuffed baked peppers, eggplants and zucchini. Meze spreads where an array of small dishes is laid out, might be the most popular way to consume Lebanese food at restaurants outside Lebanon.

Other popular plant-forward or vegan Lebanese dishes include mujadara, a dish where rice and lentils are cooked with plenty of fried onion and a dash of cumin to create a cheap and simple comfort food ​[5], [6]​. Mujadara variations include changing the texture between dry-ish like a pilaf or biryani and mushy and wet, like the Omani madrouba we made last summer, or varying the ingredients, using bulgur or red lentils in place of rice and brown lentils ​[5]​. Regional dishes include kibbeh, balls of bulgur and lentils or meat, fatteh (the pita chips and yoghurt dish we made for Syria), and ful medames (the warm fava bean dip we enjoyed while “visiting” Egypt).

While researching vegan Lebanese dishes to cook for this virtual visit, I came across the blog Plantbased Folk. This vegan blog is run by Janelle who shares a mouth-watering array of vegan and veganized Lebanese dishes. Head over to Plantbased Folk to find many interesting, vegan Lebanese recipes.

Namoura

Lebanese food is famous for its multitude of savoury dishes but there are plenty of desserts to go around, such as baklava, sesame tahini cookies and rice pudding ​[3]​. For our virtual visit to the country, I chose to make vegan namoura, a semolina cake drenched in fragrant syrup.

Similar semolina cakes known by names like sambousa, hareesa and revani, are popular throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkan and Northern Africa. In Egypt, basbousa is covered with shredded coconut and slivered almonds ​[7]​ while Greek shamali uses mastic, a plant resin, as the secret spice ​[8]​. Turkish revani uses eggs for some extra rise ​[9]​ and Palestinian helba adds boiled fenugreek seeds to the batter ​[10]​.

In Lebanon, namoura is made from semolina, yogurt, butter and sugar and topped with almonds before being baked and drenched in sugar syrup flavoured with lemon and orange blossom water or rose water ​[11]–[17]​. Usually, the pan is greased with tahini, giving the edge pieces a bit of extra character. The sweet dessert is often served during holidays and larger family gatherings and is popular during Ramadan ​[13]​.

Vegan namoura

Traditionally, namoura is made with both yogurt and butter ​[11]–[15], [17]​. Luckily, the dish does not contain eggs so making a vegan namoura recipe is as straightforward as replacing the butter and yogurt with plant-based equivalents. I used a neutral coconut yogurt and some vegan margarine for the vegan namoura recipe below but you can use what you have at hand.

Conclusion

The vegan namoura is sweet, fragrant and delicious. With both the sugar syrup and sugar in the base dough, the sweetness is not surprising (I even chose to reduce the sugar a bit). The main flavor comes from the teaspoon of orange blossom water and it really transforms the cake, giving it a perfumy aroma and flavor. The texture is dense and fluffy (a bit of a contradiction) and reminds me of cornbread (texture, not flavour). The top crust is delicious, a little crunchy, and made chewy by the syrup soak. And I really enjoyed the bitterness from the tahini on the edge pieces. Overall, the vegan namoura is very easy to make, a perfect dessert after a meze spread when you have already spent half a day cooking. Or maybe enjoy the namoura on its own with some tea or coffee in the afternoon.

Join us again next time when we head south to East Africa to visit The United Republic of Tanzania. If you don’t want to miss the next stop, you can subscribe to the email list and I’ll send you an alert when we arrive.

Vegan namoura recipe

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Vegan namoura

Namoura is a Lebanese semolina cake drenched in fragrant syrup with range blossom water. This simple cake is a perfect way to round of a meze spread.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Lebanese, Middle Eastern, West Asian

Keyword Cake, Dessert, Orange blossom water, Rose water, Semolina

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes minutes

Resting time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 10 pieces

Equipment

• 1 Round baking tray, 20 cm or similar

Ingredients

Namoura

• 500 mL semolina
• 250 mL plant-based yogurt
• 100 mL vegan butter or margarine
• 200 mL sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 15-20 blanched almonds for decoration

Syrup

• 200 mL sugar See note
• 200 mL water
• 1 tsp orange blossom water or rose water
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

Namoura

• Mix semolina with melted butter to create a crumbly dough.
• Add sugar, salt and baking powder.
• Mix in the yogurt.
• Grease a pan with tahini and add the dough.
• Flatten the dough in the pan, cover and let sit for 30 minutes to absorb moisture.
• Bake at 175℃ for 35-45 minutes, until lightly golden.

Syrup

• While the namoura is baking, mix sugar, water, orange blossom or rose water and lemon juice in a small pan. Heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Assembly

• When the namoura has finished baking, take it out of the oven and pour on the syrup. You don't have to use all.

Notes

Most recipes call for twice as much sugar in the syrup, i.e. 400 mL sugar to 200 mL water. I reduced the amount of sugar by half (but there is still plenty of sugar to go around).

References