Middle Eastern cuisine fava are cooked like other green beans, boiled and dressed in oil, or stewed with meat. The haricot beans and black-eyed beans are also common. Lentils, split peas, and chickpeas are widely used in soups, with rice, in salads, or with meat. Hummus, made from chickpeas and sesame paste, originated in Syria and Lebanon. Stuffed vegetables are a dish most associated with the Middle East in the popular mind. They are commonly called dolma, the Turkish word meaning "stuffed," but also the Arabic mahshi. Grape leaves, chard, and cabbage are stuffed with rice, ground meat, pine nuts, and spices, and
Stuffed eggplant of different flavors of the dish by region like tamarind, date, etc., also there is a wider use of spices than there is in Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan. The ingredients include eggplant, minced meat, rice, bulgur, onion, tomato paste, sumac, tamarind juice, lemon juice, date honey, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, tomato, parsley, mint, salt, black pepper and olive oil. In Italy, stuffed eggplant are cooked in oven, and can be filled with mozzarella cheese (in Rome), or with minced meat (in Sicily). In Sicily, eggplants of the violet variety are used. Stuffed eggplant Stuffed eggplants (, Iran: