Intermedio

Mandi

Name: Mandi
Total time: 3 h 30 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Saudi
Ingredients: 1.5 kg Lamb shoulder or leg on the bone, cut into large pieces; 600 g Basmati rice; 2 Onions, sliced; 1 Tomato, chopped; 4 tbsp Ghee; 8 Cardamom pods; 6 Cloves; 1 Cinnamon stick; 2 Bay leaves; 2 Black lime (loomi), pierced; 1 tsp Ground turmeric; 2 tsp Ground coriander; 1/2 tsp Saffron, steeped in 3 tbsp warm water; 1.5 L Water; 3 tsp Salt; 1 Charcoal, one lump

Lamb hung above spiced rice in a sealed pit oven so the fat drips down through it as it cooks — recreated here in a domestic oven, with a piece of burning charcoal for the smoke.

Fuente

Receta de Saudi home kitchens · 🏺 Tradicional · One big platter set on the floor for everyone to eat from — rice, a whole joint of lamb, and a cuisine built around feeding whoever arrives.

Arabian · pit-oven rice — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms the meat-over-rice pit-oven method and the spicing, and records that mandi is a traditional Arab dish with regional variations across the Arab world rather than Saudi Arabia alone. That wider scope is stated here rather than glossed over. Quantities and the domestic-oven adaptation are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

Cookd cherrytomatoes Rukhsana's Kitchen

⏱ 210 min🍽 6 porciones🔥 720 kcal🇸🇦 Arabia Saudí🌶️

HalalSin glutenSin lácteosSin frutos secos

Pasos

Rub the lamb with 1 tsp salt, the turmeric and the coriander and leave it 30 minutes.
Simmer the lamb in the water with the whole spices, black limes and onion for 1 hour 15 minutes. Lift it out and strain the broth.
💡 Pierce the black limes before they go in. Whole and unpierced they float and give up almost nothing.
Rinse and soak the rice 20 minutes. Drain it and put it in a deep oven dish with 900 ml of the broth, the ghee, tomato, saffron and the rest of the salt.
Set a rack over the dish and lay the lamb on it so the fat drips into the rice. Cover the whole thing tightly with foil.
💡 The meat above and the rice below, and a tight seal. That geometry is the entire dish — the rice is cooked by the lamb, not beside it.
Bake at 180°C for 50 minutes, then uncover and give the lamb 15 minutes at 220°C to colour.
Heat the charcoal until glowing, set it in a small foil cup on the rice, pour a teaspoon of ghee over it and cover for 3 minutes. Remove it before serving.

💡 Consejos

The charcoal smoking step is called tadkhin and takes three minutes. It is the difference between rice with lamb on it and mandi.
Mandi came north from Yemen and is now eaten across the peninsula. Kabsa is its cousin — same spices, rice and meat cooked together in one pot.
Serve it on one platter for everyone, with the meat pulled apart on top and a bowl of shatta and salad beside.