Zurbian

Ingredients

• Lamb — bone-in1.2 kg
• Basmati rice600 g
• Potatoes600 g
• Onions3
• Yoghurt300 ml
• Saffron1 pinch
• Tomatoes3
• Hawaij spice mix2 tbsp
• Cardamom pods6
• Raisins80 g
• Ghee100 g
• Salt and pepperto 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

   Marinate the lamb in yoghurt with the hawaij and salt for two hours.

   20 min

2. 2

   Rinse the rice until the water runs clear and soak it thirty minutes.

   35 min

3. 3

   Fry the onion in ghee to a deep gold and set half of it aside.

   18 min

4. 4

   Brown the meat with the remaining onion, add the tomatoes and cardamom and stew an hour.

   70 min

5. 5

   Fry the potato rounds to a golden crust in a separate pan.

   18 min

6. 6

   Boil the rice in salted water for seven minutes, to half done, and drain it.

   12 min

7. 7

   Layer the meat, rice, potato and raisins, streak the saffron over and bake it covered for thirty minutes.

   35 min

About the dish

The rice finishes in steam together with the meat under a tight lid. No steam should escape — both the aroma and the loose grains depend on it.

The saffron is steeped separately and poured in streaks over the surface rather than stirred through. The finished dish should be mottled, white and yellow at once.

The potatoes are fried before the rice stage and laid on top. Cooked with the rice they collapse and turn the dish to porridge.

Worth knowing

• — Seal the lid with dough or foil. Escaped steam means dry rice on top and overcooked rice below.
• — Boil the rice to exactly half done. Cooked soft it turns to porridge in thirty minutes under the lid.
• — Hawaij is built from cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom and black pepper. Ready-made blends vary widely, so taste your own.

Nutrition

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

Calories

780 kcal

Protein

44 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

78 g

More from Yemen

• Saltah — A meat stew served boiling in a stone pot under a whipped fenugreek froth called hulba.
• Bint al-sahn — A many-layered enriched bread brushed with ghee, drenched in honey and scattered with nigella.
• Fahsa — Boiling lamb stew in a stone bowl, topped with frothy fenugreek hulba.