Lamb Mansaf

I've just returned from Jordan, inspired. Some people think all arabic food is the same, and living in Dubai, I can tell you I've had tabouleh and humous up to here (imagine me gesturing at my larynx).

However, I've recently been delving into the different cuisines of the area, and have also been treated to an Arabic food crawl by Arva Ahmed in Deira, and I'm finally starting to find some real gems. One of them is Mansaf, the traditional lamb and yoghurt dish of Jordan.

Ingredients (notes on ratios below)

• Lamb with bone in (I used a 1.8kg leg. Shanks would also work very well)
• Laban or yoghurt
• chicken or vegetable stock
• shawarma spice (my recipe at end if you want to mix your own)
• olive oil or ghee for browning meat
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• rice cooked with a pinch of saffron threads (in the rice-cooker)
• coriander (cilantro) leaves and toasted nuts (pine nuts and slithered almonds work well) to garnish

Crunchy chicken and creamed corn crumble

Yep, it's a mouthful. And, it's not very pretty. 

BUT

This is the first proudly gluten-free dairy-free dinner I have presented my children with that has been scoffed like junk food. Possibly they are starved after 4 weeks of seaweed rice crackers and almond milk no-sugar banana smoothies and other things they simply don't want to eat? No, I don't think it's just that. This is actually yummy.

Ingredients:*

• leek, finely chopped
• garlic, crushed
• celery, finely chopped
• carrot, finely chopped 
• pinch salt
• thyme 
• last night's leftover roast chicken (removed from bone and diced roughly)
• dash of water
• tinned corn
• almond cream (or a non-dairy milk if you can't get this)
• corn (maize) flour (or another gluten-free flour for thickening)
• rice (cooked)
• breadcrumbs (gluten free of course)
• margarine (again, dairy free)

Slap-Dash Biryani in the rice cooker

I have always loved Biryani. I suppose it comes from all my childhood memories of cinnamon, and of course where it was used - apple pie, with sugar on pancakes, mixed into Mum's banana custard - all wonderfully sweet and heart-warming dishes. So now the use of it is always associated with comforting, warm moments - and I am doing my best to add it to my own children's sensory memories.

True Biryani is made by pan-frying a spice, onion and meat mix, then adding to par-cooked rice and finally baking the lot in an oven. All this takes about 2 1/2 hours. In these days of gadgets, I make mine in (gasp!) a rice cooker. I cook the meat seperately, because I like to keep it browned and crispy, and although you could serve this spiced rice with anything, from barbecued lamb kebabs to garlic tiger prawns or even on it's own, I like it with chicken.