From the Middle East to Africa: ingredients that are spicing up our cooking Middle Eastern and North African dishes are currently the height of gastronomic fashion (my colleague Stevie Parle uses his own version of them), but any newcomer who attempts the recipes is in for a surprise. While many of the ingredients are familiar - lamb, aubergine, couscous - some spices and compounds can be dauntingly alien. Not many home cooks could lay their hands on a teaspoon of za'atar or a pinch of Aleppo pepper. From The Turkish Cookbook by Nur Ilkin and Sheilah Kaufman, we learn that Aleppo pepper, used in soups and stews, is a dark, oily Syrian spice akin to paprika. In their bestselling book Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi explain that za'atar is actually the homely hyssop, though this resident of many English herb gardens gains potency when grown in the Levantine climate. Its odour is described as "sharp, warm and slightly pungent, almost at one with the smell of goat's dung, smoke from a far-off fire, soil baked in the sun and ... sweat." The dried, powdered herb is incorporated in a spicy mix (also known as za'atar) sprinkled on Arab bagels, yogurt, hummus and a host of other foods. In the culinary crescent from Morocco to Turkey, an intriguing palette of flavours awaits discovery. A few elements have already arrived in our supermarkets. Waitrose is now selling sumac, a coarse-ground red berry that adds an acidic tang to salads and stews. Nigella Lawson was one of the first to bring sumac to prominence. Her recipe for fattoush , a salad incorporating torn-up pitta bread, tomatoes, spring onions, parsley and mint with lemon juice and olive oil is topped with a sprinkling of sumac. The complex, spicy compound known as ras-el-hanout (meaning "a bit of everything"), often used in soups and stews, is widely available, though until recently it was regarded as an oddity, even in its North African homeland. "The aphrodisiacs that appear in most formulae," wrote Paula Wolfert in her 1973 book Moroccan Cuisine, "seem to be the reason why the mere mention of this mixture will put a gleam in a Moroccan cook's eye." If ras-el-hanout from the supermarket has lost this racy reputation, at least you can be sure that it is free of metallic-green specks of cantharides, also known as Spanish fly, which is not an aphrodisiac but a highly poisonous irritant. If you happen to be travelling in the Middle East, you can pick up ingredients from the markets that are a constant joy of the region - in Muscat I bought a picturesque tin containing golden crystals of gum Arabic (use in milk puddings and lamb stew) - though visitors should exercise caution. My hefty investment in astonishingly cheap saffron from a Jerusalem market turned out to be a lifetime's supply of turmeric. Somewhat more conveniently, the Turkish supermarkets found in London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh and elsewhere provide a trove of exotic food, including pomegranates and fresh dates, pistachios, crunchy herbs and spices. Or you can buy online from ottolenghi.co.uk and steenbergs.co.uk, among others. Useful items include Palestinian and Lebanese versions of za'atar. Dried barberries are tiny, clove-size fruit. Reconstituted by soaking or simmering, they deliver pinpricks of enlivening sourness to stewed chicken, lamb meatballs and rice dishes. Pomegranate molasses is a thick, potent reduction used in aubergine stew, for binding kebabs and in salad dressings. Tamarind paste adds its sweet-sour fruitiness to dishes as varied as braised quail and Persian fish stew. Plastic jars of tahini (sesame seed paste) from Beirut are an essential ingredient in home-made hummus (whizz up with chickpeas, olive oil, cold water and garlic): tastier, and far cheaper, than the ready-made version. But it's delicious made into a simple sauce (mix 150g well-stirred tahini paste with 120ml water, two tablespoons of lemon juice, one crushed garlic clove and one quarter teaspoon of salt). Ottolenghi says this is "the one ingredient that appears in both east and west Jerusalem, among Jews and Palestinians alike."