Maqdeed

Ingredients

• Lamb — boneless1.5 kg
• Coarse salt120 g
• Turmeric3 tbsp
• Onions3
• Garlic6 clove
• Dried chilli2
• Ghee80 g
• Cumin1 tbsp
• Rice — to serve500 g

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 lamb into two-finger strips along the grain.

   30 min

2. 2

   Rub the strips all over with salt and turmeric, sparing neither.

   15 min

3. 3

   Hang the meat in shade with a draught and dry it three to five days, until fully hard.

   20 min

4. 4

   Soak the dried meat in cold water for two hours, changing the water once.

   15 min

5. 5

   Boil the meat forty minutes, until it softens and starts to come apart in threads.

   45 min

6. 6

   Fry the onion with the garlic, cumin and chilli in ghee until golden.

   12 min

7. 7

   Add the shredded meat and fry ten minutes more, to browned edges. Serve it with rice.

   14 min

About the dish

The meat is cut into long thin strips along the grain. Across it, the strips tear as they dry; too thick, they never dry through and spoil from within.

Salt and turmeric go on heavily: they are preservatives here, not seasoning. Under-salted meat in the heat rots rather than drying.

It dries in shade with a draught rather than in direct sun. Direct rays bake the surface, the moisture stays inside and the meat spoils under a dry crust.

Worth knowing

• — Protect the meat from flies with muslin. That is not a decorative precaution: without it the whole batch has to go.
• — Test the drying by bending: a strip should snap rather than bend. One that bends is still damp inside.
• — Drying in an oven at 60 °C with the door ajar is a legitimate substitute in a damp climate, and admitting it is more honest than passing it off as sun-drying.

Nutrition

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

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

52 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

34 g

More from Oman

• Shuwa — Lamb in a spice paste, wrapped in leaves and cooked for a full day. Oman's dish for Eid.
• Mishkak — Meat on skewers in a tamarind and spice marinade, grilled over coals at the roadside.
• Omani halwa — A chewy halwa of starch, rosewater and saffron, stirred two hours in a cauldron.