Another Fish to Fry : Tahini Flavored With Cayenne and Dill Add a Lebanese Touch to This Simple Dish

QUICK, NAME A Lebanese fish dish. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Time’s up.

It’s a trick question. The Lebanese coastline is not particularly rich in fish, so there aren’t many Lebanese fish dishes. If people get their hands on fish at all in the Mideast, they tend to cook it in either of two simple ways: grilled, with lemon juice on the side, or stewed with tomatoes and onions. The same ways, in other words, that just about everybody else in the world cooks fish.

But the Lebanese do have one unique method, and it happens to make an excellent winter dish. The fish is baked with the same tahini sauce that flavors chickpeas in hummus bi-tahini , plus some fried onions and usually a bit of red pepper. It’s a rich and luscious combination not soon forgotten.

It’s also an ancient mix of flavors. Medieval cookbooks from this part of the world contain recipes for fish baked with a similar combination of ingredients--only with mustard in place of red pepper because red pepper wasn’t known yet.

This particular version of the dish is a little more peppery than others and has a dose of dill, an herb more often associated with Russian than with Arab cooking, though it is known and used in the Near East. Just go to any of the Abu Shakra chain of shish kebab parlors in Cairo; you’ll find a surprisingly hot tahini sauce with dill in it.

FISH WITH TAHINI

1 1/2 cups chopped onion 1/2 cup olive oil 2 pounds fish filets, such as red snapper 1 1/2 cups tahini 4 medium garlic cloves 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons cayenne 3/4 cup lemon juice 1/2 cup water 2 teaspoons dill weed

Fry onion in olive oil until golden, about 15 minutes. Remove onion and set aside. Fry fish filets in same oil until they start to stiffen. Remove filets from fire.

Open jar or can of tahini and stir vigorously until oil and solids are thoroughly mixed; if container has been sitting for a long time, you may have to remove contents and blend in food processor. Measure 1 1/2 cups tahini into small mixing bowl. Crush garlic and stir with tahini, salt, cayenne, lemon juice, water and dill until mixture thickens. Add fried onions.

Place fish in greased baking dish, pour sauce over and bake at 350 degrees 20 minutes. Sprinkle fish with more dill and, in crisscross pattern, cayenne or paprika. Serve with rice. Makes 4 servings.

Food and prop stylist: Diane Elander