Arabian Meat Dishes

There are a variety of Arabian meat dishes in the cuisine of Arabia. The Arabian Gulf flocks with fish food. Some of them were once highly prized and cooked are now seldom eaten: na’ud, shark, is reputedly delicious if it has been boiled for hours, and lukhmah, which is sting-ray, beaten with rice into a sort of a puree. More elegantly served and eaten is the dish mashkul, which is made with tender, trout-sized gray subyati. The fish is commonly slit open and filled with scrumptious onion fillings that are primarily sautéed in oil with ground cumin, cinnamon, turmeric and black pepper. Other regional favorite Arabian meat dishes are kubbat maraq: balls of rice spiced with turmeric, pepper, cumin and dried lime are shaped around a center of fried ground meat, onions and parsley and set off to simmer in a sauce which is flavored with tomato; and fi qa’atag: it is a three layered dish that is served with rice on the bottom, meat in the middle and almonds on the top. It is prepared top side down, for the name in all literal sense means “at the bottom”. The meat is very spicy and hot, thick slices of lamb, occasionally veal which is first rubbed with cumin, all spice, garlic, salt and pepper are hours later braised in water with cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Indeed the Arabian meat dishes are quite flavor able, easy to cook, though some of them are a little time consuming, yet delicious to eat and serve at the same time.