Assyrian cuisine tomato sauce and baked in the oven, not unlike the Levantine version of moussaka), "shamakhshi" (fried rolled eggplant stuffed with ground beef in tomato sauce), "Dolma" (rice and tomato sauce stuffed in grape leaves, cabbage, various peppers, zucchini, and eggplant), "Masgouf" (fish spiced with olive oil, salt, and turmeric, topped with tomatoes, potatoes, and onions then oven-baked) and "Lahmacun" (flatbread topped with ground beef, tomato paste, spices, and onions). Sesame seeds are important to the cuisine and used to make tahini, there is even an Assyrian folk tale about the gods drinking sesame wine on the night before they created
Anchovy paste anchovies, vinegar, spices and water, and some commercial preparations are produced using these ingredients. Butter is also sometimes used as a base ingredient, and the resultant product is sometimes referred to as "anchovy butter", and in French as "beurre d'anchois". Anchovy paste has been used for centuries as a source of nutrients and to provide flavour to foods. "Allec", a food byproduct used as a condiment that dates to the times of classical antiquity and Ancient Rome, is the paste left over from the preparation of liquamen (a predecessor to garum prepared using various oily fish, including anchovies) that has