The Gulf and Arabia · Volume 08, The Sultanate the Desert Never Fully Closed
Harees
Oman, nationwide
Illustration
- Time
- 11 hours
A plain, deeply comforting porridge of pounded wheat and meat, beaten by hand until smooth, and the dish Isa Al Lamki, president of the Omani Chefs Association, has chosen to rework as his own answer to Omani cuisine being "wronged" by neglect: not a new dish, but the same flavour base given a composed, restaurant-plate structure, cooked, in his own words, with "no restrictions or laws."
As tradition built it
Serves 6. Wheat soaks overnight, then about 3 hours.
Ingredients
- 300g hulled wheat berries
- 500g bone-in chicken thighs, or a 1kg piece of lamb shoulder
- 1 onion, sliced
- 1 tablespoon salt
- enough to cover the meat by about 5cm water, to cover generously
- a generous knob ghee, to finish
- for garnish fried onions
Method
- Soak the wheat berries overnight in cold water.
- Drain, and simmer with the chicken or lamb, onion, salt and enough water to cover generously by 5cm, for 2 to 3 hours, topping up water as needed, until the wheat is fully collapsed and the meat falls apart.
- Remove any bones, then beat the whole pot vigorously with a wooden spoon or a hand blender's pulse setting until it forms a smooth, thick, porridge-like paste, traditionally pounded by hand for a genuinely long time.
- Finish with the ghee stirred through and a scatter of fried onions.
What a modern chef changes
The same porridge reshaped as a filled, seared dumpling, after Isa Al Lamki
After Isa Al Lamki's own rework
Ingredients
- deeply caramelised onions (cooked low for 40 minutes with a spoon of sugar)
- plumped raisins
- ghee, for searing
Method
- Cook the wheat and meat as in the tradition method, but reserve a portion of the meat separately and shred it.
- Stuff the shredded meat, along with the caramelised onions and plumped raisins, into the centre of a shaped portion of the beaten wheat paste, a filled dumpling rather than a single bowl.
- Sear the outside in ghee in a hot pan until it forms a light crust.
- Serve with the fried onion and raisin garnish on top.
Notes
Exactly the elevation Al Lamki himself has cooked and named in his own words: taking a plain, comforting porridge and giving it a composed, restaurant-plate structure without changing its actual flavour base.