Mansaf

The ultimate dish for a bedouin, or any other feast

I am just back from a terrific trip to Jordan where I was invited to the first ever Jordan International Food Festival. As some of you may know, I have been to many food festivals but this one was very special, not only because it was incredibly well and very generously organised by a fabulous team with a stellar group of invited chefs, food journalists and food writers but also because I was finally able to visit Petra, a long held wish that I had not yet come to realise despite my travelling the globe, more or less.

It was also an occasion for me to mend a long lost friendship and just as importantly, to try and taste the ultimate mansaf. I had already cooked it myself for my book, Feast, Food of the Islamic World (the picture above is of the one I cooked for the book, styled by Claire Ptak and shot by Kristin Perers) but I hadn’t had very many cooked by others.

My first taste was more than 20 years ago when I had a cooking segment in a magazine programme for MBC at the very beginning of the channel when it was still based in London. My boss was Palestinian and his wife an amazing cook. One evening, they invited me to dinner and she had prepared an incredibly delicious mansaf and an equally delectable mussakhan. Since that day, I tasted a few versions of both, with mussakhan becoming a go to dish for me to prepare in Sicily for when I had friends over.

But I never developed an obsession with mansaf the way I had done with camel hump and other dishes until that is, after I had one at the festival’s welcome dinner in the beautiful Beit Rumman. It was very good although slightly different from those I had tasted before, so I took it upon myself to chase the ultimate mansafe, ordering it wherever I went.

Then, I was invited to the beautiful home of Sirine Abu Ghazaleh to whom I was introduced by Hania Rayess Boustani, another friend in Beirut and there was the ultimate version, made with kid. Sirine’s lunch was delightful, both for the company and the food; and her mansaf was the best I had during my stay in Amman — I even managed to taste one on the plane on the flight back to London but I won’t comment on that versions!

Sirine also very kindly sent me a whole lot of jameed (the dried yoghurt that is an essential ingredient for mansaf) to the hotel (together with the most amazing Yemeni honey) to take back home with me to make my own whenever I feel like having it. So, I am all set for experimenting with mansaf to achieve my own perfect version, even if Sirine’s was pretty perfect, and the meat they hhad used was kid instead of lamb which is even better and leaner.

And until I perfect the recipe, here is the recipe from my book for you to try. If you can’t get hold of jameed, use the most sour yoghurt you can get, perhaps sheep’s or goat’s.