Mansaf

Mansaf is the national dish of Jordan and is deeply tied to Bedouin traditions of hospitality. It is the dish served at weddings, funerals, religious holidays and to honoured guests, and the manner of serving it carries as much meaning as the food.

Preparing mansaf for visitors is a statement of generosity, and the size of the platter and the quantity of meat communicate the regard in which guests are held. Refusing to eat, or eating too little, can be read as a slight.

It is also eaten in parts of Palestine, Syria and Iraq, but its status as a formal national symbol is specifically Jordanian.

The dish depends on jameed: yoghurt from sheep or goat milk that has been strained, salted heavily and dried into hard pale balls that keep for long periods without refrigeration — an entirely practical technology for a pastoral, desert-edge society.

To cook, the jameed is soaked and reconstituted into a thin, intensely tangy and salty sauce. That sharp fermented flavour is what defines mansaf and distinguishes it from any ordinary lamb-and-rice dish.

Lamb is simmered in the reconstituted jameed until very tender. The sauce must be stirred continuously as it heats or it will split, which is the main technical hazard of the dish.

Assembly is layered: thin shrak flatbread lines a very large tray, rice is spread over it, the lamb is arranged on top, and the hot jameed sauce is poured over everything. Toasted almonds and pine nuts and a scatter of parsley finish it.

It is eaten communally from the shared tray, traditionally standing, using the right hand to compress a mouthful of rice and meat into a ball and lift it cleanly to the mouth — a technique that visitors are usually forgiven for failing at.

Extra jameed is passed around in bowls to be poured over as the meal continues, and the bread beneath, saturated with sauce, is reached at the end.