The Horn · Volume 11, The Indian Ocean Kitchen
Maraq fah-fah
Somalia and Djibouti, where it is soupe djiboutienne
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour 10
- Researched
- Researched from 103 sources in the brief
- Reviewed
- Awaiting a reader from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Awaiting a cook report
Maraq is the universal broth of this corridor, shared with Yemen and the Gulf. Fah-fah is its Djiboutian and northern Somali name, usually goat, usually with green chilli and coriander, and frequently eaten at breakfast. One number reframes the dish. A worked British version gives 600 g of white cabbage against 300 g of lamb. Fah-fah is not a meat soup with vegetables for bulk. It is a vegetable soup that a small amount of meat is seasoning, which is what you would expect of a dish from an economy where meat is capital.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 1 hour 10.
Ingredients
- 300 g lean stewing lamb or goat, diced
- as listed 2 white onions, 6 to 8 garlic cloves
- 1.5 L water, or stock
- 350 g potato
- 120 g carrot
- 170 g parsnip
- 600 g white cabbage
- 240 g tomato
- as listed 1 green chilli, 1 tsp ground coriander
- to taste coriander leaf, lemon juice, black pepper
Method
- The lean stewing lamb or goat, white onions and garlic into the water. Simmer 40 minutes to tender.
- Potato, carrot, parsnip, white cabbage and tomato. 15 minutes.
- Green chilli and ground coriander. 5 minutes.
- Off the heat: coriander leaf, lemon juice, black pepper. 2 minutes, then serve.
Notes
After a weighed British version published for Somali families.
What a modern chef changes
Two stocks, two vegetable timings, and the acid at the bowl
Rungs 5, 4 and 6
Method
- Make the broth at 71 to 82°C and keep the meat out of the boil. Rung 5. Forty minutes at a rolling boil on lean goat gives you strings; the same forty just under a simmer gives tender meat and a clear broth, and clear matters, because this is a soup you look into.
- Split the vegetables into two timings. Parsnip, carrot and potato need the full fifteen minutes, cabbage needs six and tomato needs three, and cooking all five for fifteen is why the diaspora version tastes uniformly of soft cabbage.
- Build the broth on bones and reduce it before the vegetables go in. Rung 4. Bone-in goat neck for an hour and a half, strained and defatted, with the diced meat cooked separately and returned.
- Lime and chilli at the bowl. Rung 6. Squeeze at the table and put the basbaas on the side. Acid added in the pot and held for service is acid that has already flattened, and this is one of the two or three dishes in the cuisine where brightness is the whole point.