This simple noodle and lentil dish punctuated with feta and pine nuts is part of Limor Laniado Tirosh’s Shavuot table. In Lebanese homes, rishta is often prepared as a soup, but in Limor’s Syrian-Moroccan family, it’s more akin to mujaddara, with pasta standing in for the rice. Limor, who is the creator behind The Local Kitchen (Mitbach Mekomi in Hebrew) shares the story behind the recipe in her own words:

In my childhood home, my mother’s cooking was the center of our household. The daily family conversation always revolved around food: “What’s cooking today? What will we eat tomorrow?” and most importantly: “What’s for Shabbat dinner?” My mother loved cooking and baking, and there’s no doubt I inherited her passion.

She’s been gone for many years now, but the flavors and aromas of her kitchen are a constant presence in my memory. When I first started cooking, I tried to imitate her — but it never quite worked. It took me years to understand that her hand and the taste of my childhood were unique and irreplaceable. This realization freed me and allowed me to create a kitchen of my own — with some inspiration from my mother. 

When I was a child, rishta was a perfect solution for lunch on a blisteringly hot Shabbat afternoon at the end of summer. It was simply too hot to spend time in the kitchen, so my mother would whip up this simple dish. Its origins lie in the kitchen of Aleppo — my father immigrated to Israel from Syria, and my mother, a “good wife,” learned to cook Syrian food from my aunts, even though she was from Tangier, on the opposite side of the Mediterranean.

My version of rishta is lighter, made with less oil and less work (I have a deep, existential need to tweak recipes so they require less effort in the kitchen — but still taste absolutely amazing).