recipe: Yemeni Zorbiyan

A game changing crowd favourite everyone will adore you for

Yemeni Zorbiyan

Preparation Time: 45mins

Cooking Time: 5 hours

Zorbiyan is the crown jewel in Yemeni cuisine. Naturally it was one of the first dishes I wanted to learn to get right. Its a labour of love and takes time, you cook this when you have a full house of people you love. Take it out of the oven and peel off the wrapping in front of all of them, the waft of spice and aroma fills the room. Everyone stares, everyone’s mouth salivates. They all will now be up your a** the rest of the night.

A deep, complex and aromatic dish that is served with an assortment of condiments. Its an orchestra of texture and flavour. Hans Zimmer elite level eating experience. Every mouthful is a rollercoaster of spice, aroma, citrus, and sour.

The recipe uses the spice blend I developed alongside Diaspora Co specifically with this dish in mind. The recipe below is a fusion between how my awesome aunt cooks it and my incredible chef friend Akram Said cooks it. Two of the best Yemeni cooks I know.

Ingredients: (serves 12approx)

Zorbiyan:

• 4kg lamb shoulder cut into fist sized chunks

• 8 cups of basmati rice

• 4 to 5 tbsp of Diaspora Co Hawaij Masala (enough to completely coat the meat)

• 6 medium potatoes

• 8 onions finely diced

• 4 fresh green chillis diced

• 6 dried red chillis

• 2 bulbs of garlic diced

• 2 tbsp tomato puree

• 2 tbsp tamarind paste (optional)

• 3 dried black limes (optional)

• 5 ripe tomatoes diced (or just use 4 tinned tomatoes they work just as well and are canned when the tomatoes are most ripe)

• a pinch saffron

• 6 or 7 bay leaves

• 800ml of chicken stock

• 4 golden fried onions sliced (for garnish)

Preparations:

• In a large roasting pan (or two if you don’t have one large enough) massage your meat (pause…) with olive oil so the spices stick better. Season the meat generously with Diaspora Co Hawaij Spice Blend. I mean seriously generously. Cover the meat in the blend and massage with your hands. If possible, its always best to leave this to marinade for as long as you can.

• In a large frying pan with splash of oil sear the marinated meat so the surface is brown.

• I learnt this stage from Akram. Put your seared meat back in the large roasting tray and place a small bowl inside it. Put the outer shell of an onion inside it and put either ghee or oil in the shell. Place a hot coal on top of this. Then cover and seal the meat with foil. This will recreate a smoking environment and give the meat this smokey flavour to it.

• Now in the same pan you seared the meat you’re gonna deglaze this with garlic first for a few seconds then throw in the onions. I like to cook the onion until brown for a deeper flavour. Then add the chilli. Then add the tomatoes with the tamarind, dried chilli, black limes and tomato paste. Once cooked through pour this over the meat. Then pour chicken stock, then add the water until 3/4 of the meat is covered in liquid and place some bay leafs inside too. Wrap the tray in a couple layers of foil and make sure its sealed.

• Heat your oven to 180c (or 350f) and place the tray inside and cook for 4 hours.

• As you approach the last hour of cooking take out the tray. Carefully peel off the foil and place peeled potatoes inside. Reseal and put it back in the oven.

• When the lamb is done you need to somehow carefully drain all the broth and liquid into another cooking pot. Leaving all the drained meat and potatoes in the baking tray.

• Into the broth you’re going to add a cup of yoghurt and whisk together. Add 4 of the 8 cups of rice into this pot.

• In another pot you’re going to cook the rest of the rice. Season the rice with salt, bay leaves, cloves, cardamon and cinnamon sticks.

• When the rice is 75% cooked in both pots you’re going to spoon over the rice that has been cooked in broth over the meat in the tray. Then you’re going to drain the other white rice and layer that on top of the brown rice.

• Then take the saffron threads crush it in a pestle and mortar, pour hot water on top. Let it sit in the hot water for a bit then pour this over the white rice. This will give it a nice dye.

• We’re then going to smoke it again with a bowl, ghee/oil and coal and cover immediately with foil sealing it. Then put it back into the oven fro 20-30 mins until the rice cooks fully.

• Whilst this is happening take finely sliced onions and slowly fry until dark brown and crispy.

• When ready spoon over a massive circular serving tray, dig deep to get the meat and sauce. Then sprinkle over the fried onions as garnish.

• Serve with an assortment of sides - sahawig, chutneys, katchumbar salad. All of these essential to a full zorbiyan eating experience.