National Dishes of the World

EN PL

Saltah
Photo: Rania al-Bahara, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Saltah

سلتة (saltah)

A bubbling stew of meat broth and vegetables topped with a fenugreek froth and served in a scorching stone pot.

Eaten in: Yemen

Prep
25 min
Cooking
1 h 30 min
Resting
2 h
Total
3 h 55 min
Servings
4

Jump to recipe

About the dish

Saltah is a thick stew made on a meat broth called maraq, with onion, tomatoes, garlic, potatoes and the Yemeni spice blend hawaij. Its hallmark is hilbeh – ground fenugreek whipped with water into a light, slightly bitter froth and mixed with a fiery paste of chilli, garlic and coriander. The stew is poured into a stone pot heated until scorching, the hilbeh is spooned on top, and it arrives at the table still boiling. It is scooped up with pieces of flatbread at lunch, which is the main meal of the day in Yemen. Egg, rice or pieces of meat are often added too.

Main ingredients

  • lamb broth
  • fenugreek
  • tomatoes
  • onion
  • potatoes
  • hawaij
  • chilli and coriander

Yemen: Regarded as Yemen's national dish and closely associated with Sana'a, where it is eaten at lunch.

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Saltah

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/saltah

Ingredients

4 servings

4 servings

Method

  1. Cover the fenugreek with 150 ml water and leave for 2 hours. Then pour off the water above the sediment.

  2. Cover the meat with the water, bring to the boil, skim, salt and simmer for 1 hour. Lift out the meat and take it off the bone, keeping the broth.

  3. Chop the onion and fry it in the oil, add half the garlic, the chopped tomatoes and the hawaij and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the diced potatoes, the meat and about 600 ml of broth and simmer for 20 minutes. Mash some of the potatoes to thicken the stew.

  5. Blend the chillies, coriander, remaining garlic and a pinch of salt into a paste. Whisk the soaked fenugreek, adding cold water a spoonful at a time, until it turns into a pale, fluffy froth; stir in the paste.

  6. Heat a cast-iron pot or stone dish until very hot, pour in the stew and spoon the fenugreek froth on top.

  7. Serve straight away, still boiling, with flatbread for scooping.

From the same kitchen