There’s a lot more to Middle Eastern cuisine than what you can buy at sidewalk food trucks or in a tub, says Rawia Bishara, the co-owner of the acclaimed restaurant Tanoreen, which has been luring chowhounds to Bay Ridge for 20 years with its fresh, flavorful dishes.

“The reputation of Middle Eastern food is just shish kebab and hummus,” the 63-year-old Bay Ridge resident tells The Post. “People forget that our mothers cook at home, and it’s very healthy.”

With her new cookbook, “Levant: New Middle Eastern Cooking from Tanoreen” (Kyle), Bishara offers up recipes that make the already nutritious Mediterranean diet of her native Palestine even more wholesome.

Many of the dishes are gluten free, packed with vegetables and combined with the kinds of superfoods her two children, daughter, Jumana, 42, and son Tarek, 38, have introduced to her.

Both of her children hit the gym often, “so we cook healthier foods [for them],” she says. “But this is what we are all supposed to eat!”

Tarek, an actor in Los Angeles, suggested she use quinoa instead of bulgur (wheat that has been cooked, dried and ground) in traditional dishes, and, after tinkering with it, she’s come to love the protein-rich grain. She now eats tabbouleh made with quinoa several times a week.

“I didn’t want to change Middle Eastern food, and I didn’t want to deconstruct it,” Bishara says of the dish and her new cookbook as a whole. “I wanted to freshen the food. Enliven it, make it according to our time.”

Quinoa
¾ cup olive oil
2 shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp. sea salt and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 ½ cups quinoa
1 ½ cups boiling water or vegetable or chicken stock

Salad
3 cups packed chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 cup packed chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup chopped fresh mint
2 Kirby or Persian cucumbers, diced
3 plum tomatoes, diced
1 large fennel bulb, cored and diced (reserve 2 fronds for serving)
1 long hot chili, seeded and chopped (optional)
1 small red onion, diced
3 scallions, green parts only, chopped
½ cup olive oil
Juice of 2 large lemons (about ½ cup)
1 tsp. sea salt, or to taste
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Make the quinoa
In a deep skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the shallots are golden. Add the garlic and cook until aromatic, then add the salt, black pepper and cumin. Add the quinoa and boiling water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 12 minutes, or until the quinoa is cooked through. Remove from the heat and spread over a baking sheet to cool.

Place the quinoa in a large bowl and toss with all of the salad ingredients. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

From “Levant: New Middle Eastern Cooking from Tanoreen” by Rawia Bishara (Kyle Books; 2018)