Our cookbook of the week is Souk to Table by Amina Al-Saigh, Toronto-based author, former engineer and founder of the Middle Eastern food blog Hungry Paprikas.

Jump to the recipes: lentil soup, one-pot chicken and saffron orzo, and Sarra’s saucy skillet trout.

Amina Al-Saigh translated a career in engineering to food. “For the longest time, I saw them as separate because they use different parts of me,” says the Toronto-based author and creator of the Middle Eastern food blog Hungry Paprikas. “Engineering is numbers and project management and very corporate-heavy skills. And then food is the creative, the cultural, the emotional, the love.”