The Levantine Table by Ghillie Bașan

Author:Ghillie Bașan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ryland Peters & Small
Published: 2022-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

TRADITIONAL ROASTING & CHAR-GRILLING

Meat, dairy and dates were the mainstay of the early Arab diet and the cooking of the meat would have been simple – grilled or roasted over a fire, or stewed in a pot – but for celebratory banquets the wealthy would have roasted a whole lamb, goat or camel on a spit over a fire, or in a pit oven. Roasting a whole animal in this way still plays an important role in the Muslim culinary tradition of the Levant to honour important guests and to celebrate religious and special occasions. The Bedouin of the region excel with their traditional dish, mansaf, which consists of a large tray lined with sheets of flatbread, followed by a layer of rice on top of which sit chunks of roasted lamb covered in a sauce made from the roasting juices thickened with jameed, dried yogurt balls (see page 31). Regarded as the national dish of Jordan, it can involve the elaborate preparation of a young camel stuffed with a whole sheep, stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a chicken – a bit like a Russian doll.

Traditional roasting is often a communal event as it might require the digging of a pit in the ground in which a whole lamb or goat, rubbed with salt and spices, is cooked slowly over the glowing embers, producing an extremely tender and tasty meat that is torn off with fingers. In Yemen, the slow-roasted dish mandi can be prepared with a whole lamb or several large chickens placed on a rack in a pit oven, with a tray of saffron rice underneath to cook in the juices that run from the meat as it cooks over the embers.

Smaller cuts of meat, poultry, game birds, fish and vegetables are usually roasted in the communal clay tannur, below or above ground, the village furn, or grilled over a portable charcoal stove, a mangal (manqal), which can be conveniently set up on a city balcony or transported to the beach or the woods for a countryside picnic.

The aroma of these smoking outdoor grills, or kebabs/kabobs being prepared in street stalls, is a delightful feature of daily life, in particular the Arab shawarma and Turkish döner kebab, which are essentially the same dish, prepared by threading marinated pieces of lamb or chicken, interspersed with pieces of fat to keep the meat moist, onto a vertical spit which rotates in front of a charcoal fire while the cook deftly slices off the meat with a very sharp knife so that the fine slices are deliciously moist and tender. The pieces of meat are then eaten in the pocket of pitta bread, or on top of other flatbreads, and smothered in tahini, or yogurt, with onions, tomatoes, pickles and leafy herbs, such as coriander/cilantro, parsley and mint.

Outside the Christian communities, it is rare for pork to be consumed and the preferred meat is mutton or lamb, followed by beef, veal and goat and in some regions, water buffalo and camel.

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