I was once invited to Syria to try its celebrated cuisine, but I couldn’t go and have regretted it ever since, particularly now, seeing the terrible devastation inflicted on the country. Thankfully, I can do a tiny bit to help: the #CookForSyria campaign, which Yotam wrote about here last month, is releasing a stellar collection of Syrian-inspired recipes from the UK’s top food writers, to raise funds for Unicef. So, this week, here are two recipes in homage to Syria: a rich mushroom pilaf and a tangy, berry-red granita.

Wild mushroom pilaf with chopped parsley and sumac

Turkish chilli is mild, and has a rich, rounded flavour that comes from being toasted in sunshine. It’s well worth seeking out. Serves four.

250g basmati rice
30g dried porcini
50g butter
3 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp allspice berries, ground
100g shelled walnuts, roughly chopped
300g mixed wild mushrooms (or sliced portobello mushrooms)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
½ bunch parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
1 lemon
To serve
Greek yoghurt
1-2 tsp sumac
1-2 tsp Turkish chilli flakes

Put the rice in a pan, cover with water, stir and drain. Repeat twice more, by which stage the water should run clear. Cover the rice with water a fourth time and leave to soak (this washing is the secret to great pilaf). Put the porcini in a bowl, cover with boiling water, soak for 15 minutes, until soft, then drain.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large, deep pan on a medium-low heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Fry the onions, cinnamon and a few big pinches of salt for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and sweet; add the allspice and drained porcini after 15 minutes.

Bring a kettle of water to a boil and drain the rice. Turn up the heat under the onions and, once sizzling, stir in the nuts. Cook for a minute or two, until starting to colour, then stir in the rice and another quarter-teaspoon of salt. Add boiling water to cover the rice by 2.5cm, and stir again.

When the water begins to simmer, top the pan with a tight-fitting lid and leave the rice to cook for five minutes. Turn down the heat to low, cook for six minutes more, then take off the heat and leave the rice, still covered, to rest for 10 minutes. Resist any temptation to take a peek.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining two tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan on a medium-high flame, then fry the fresh mushrooms and garlic for about 10 minutes, turning the mushrooms as they colour, until tender (if your pan is on the small side, you may have to do this in batches). Stir in half the parsley and a teaspoon of lemon juice, and season.

Once the rice has rested, fluff it up with a fork and serve with the fried mushrooms on top and wedges of lemon to squeeze over. Have yoghurt, parsley, sumac and Turkish chilli at the table, to spoon or sprinkle over.

Pomegranate granita with salted sesame snaps

This light, zippy granita is given body by the sweet, salty, nutty biscuits. Serves four.

3 large pomegranates (to yield 475g seeds), or 350ml pomegranate juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
50ml Cointreau (optional)
Zest and juice of ½ small orange
25g caster sugar
40ml water

For the biscuits
100g butter
150g soft brown sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
Sea salt
50g ground almonds
175g flaked almonds
25g sesame seeds

Roll the pomegranates firmly on a worktop, to loosen the seeds. Holding the fruit over a bowl to catch the juice, cut each one open and pull out and discard the white, bitter pith. Tear the fruit into three or four pieces and tease out the seeds into the bowl, picking out any pith as you go. Once you have extracted all the seeds (a great job for children, incidentally), reserve a small handful and whizz the rest in a food processor for a few minutes. Strain into a bowl (you should have about 350ml of juice) and add the vanilla extract, Cointreau (if using), orange zest and juice; discard the spent seeds.

Meanwhile, put the sugar and water into a small pan and simmer, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Stir into the juice, then pour the lot into a shallow, freezer-proof dish and freeze. After an hour, scrape and loosen the solid bits with a fork, and repeat three more times, until the mix has the texture of rough, flaky snow.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line two oven trays with baking paper. Melt the butter, sugar, sesame oil and a good pinch of sea salt in a large pan until combined and bubbling – don’t let it go too dark – then stir in all the nuts and sesame seeds until coated. Working quickly, spoon six large teaspoons of biscuit mixture on each tray, spacing them a little apart, and gently press down with the back of the spoon to flatten. Sprinkle with a little extra salt, bake for 10 minutes, then remove and leave to cool.

To serve, rough up the granita with a couple of forks, spoon into small bowls, scatter on the reserved pomegranate seeds and serve with the biscuits.

And for the rest of the week…

Excess mushrooms make brilliant fast food: fry in butter with garlic and salt for 15 minutes, then add some sherry or white wine, and a good glug of cream, reduce until the sauce is thick and serve on toast. I sprinkle Turkish chilli liberally on all sorts, particularly fried or baked eggs. Leftover pomegranate seeds taste, and look, gorgeous scattered on yoghurt and in salads.