Galayet bandora

Ingredients

• Tomatoes — ripe1.2 kg
• Olive oil120 ml
• Garlic6 clove
• Green chilli3
• Onion1
• Flatbreads — to serve4
• Dried mint1 tsp
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Cut the tomatoes into large wedges, skins and seeds left in.

   10 min

2. 2

   Heat the olive oil in a wide pan and soften the onion in it.

   8 min

3. 3

   Add the crushed garlic and the whole green chillies and warm them a minute.

   3 min

4. 4

   Tip in the tomatoes, salt them and stew over a medium heat, stirring now and then.

   15 min

5. 5

   Crush the tomatoes with a spoon once the skins start to lift from the flesh.

   5 min

6. 6

   Reduce it fifteen minutes more, until the oil rises at the edges as a separate layer.

   18 min

7. 7

   Scatter with dried mint and serve it in the pan with flatbread.

   4 min

About the dish

The tomatoes go in ripe and unpeeled. The skins break down on their own as it reduces, while peeled fruit gives a watery mass without body.

The oil goes in at the start rather than the end. The tomatoes should stew in it rather than boil in their own juice — the whole texture rests on that.

Doneness is read off the oil: it should rise above the red mass as a separate layer. Until then the dish is still cooking.

Worth knowing

• — Use a wide pan. In a narrow pot the moisture never evaporates and you get soup instead of a thick sauce.
• — Winter tomatoes give little flavour. A spoon of tomato paste rescues the colour and body, but this is better cooked in summer.
• — Leave the chillies whole if you want no heat — they give only their aroma. Split, they make the dish fierce.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

380 kcal

Protein

8 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

32 g

More from Jordan

• Mansaf — Lamb in a sauce of jameed, fermented dried yoghurt, over rice and flatbread. Jordan's national dish.
• Maqluba — Rice with meat and fried vegetables cooked in one pot and turned out whole onto a platter.
• Musakhan — Chicken with onion and sumac on taboon bread soaked in olive oil.