Mastawa is a winter rice: short-grain rice cooked soft in lamb broth with chickpeas, sharpened with fine strips of bitter orange peel and finished with garlic, dill, black pepper and a sour dairy. In Afghanistan the meat is often lahndi, mutton salted and wind-dried in autumn to last the cold months, and the dairy is qurut, the hard dried yoghurt that is softened in water before use. This version uses fresh lamb shoulder and plain yoghurt in their place. The orange should be a Seville, the bitter orange Afghans call narenj. The rice cooks uncovered until it has taken up the broth, then the yoghurt, chickpeas and fried garlic go in, and the pot sits under a cloth-wrapped lid on the lowest heat for half an hour.
Zone: Silk Road Table
INGREDIENTS
- 700 g lamb shoulder on the bone (in pieces)
- 3 medium onions (chopped)
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 Seville orange
- 450 g short-grain rice
- 500 g plain yoghurt (in place of qurut)
- 3-4 garlic cloves (crushed)
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp dried dill
- 1 tbsp ground black pepper
- 400 g tin chickpeas (drained)
- salt (to taste)
METHOD
- Put the lamb, onions and turmeric in a large pan with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for about 1½ hours, until the meat comes away from the bone easily.
- Meanwhile, pare the peel from the orange, cut away as much white pith as you can and slice the peel into thin matchsticks. Leave to soak in cold water.
- Lift out the lamb, let it cool a little, then pull the meat from the bones, shred it by hand and return it to the pan.
- Rinse the rice and add it to the pan with the drained orange peel and some salt. The liquid should cover the rice by about 2cm; add water if needed.
- Bring back to the boil, then cook uncovered over a medium heat, stirring now and then, until the rice is just tender and the liquid has been absorbed.
- Gently stir in the yoghurt. Fry the garlic in the oil for a minute and add it with the dill, black pepper, chickpeas and more salt to taste.
- Mix well, cover the pan with a clean thick cloth and then the lid, and leave on a low heat for about 30 minutes.
- Serve with warm naan.
NOTES
UK adaptation: Plain yoghurt stands in here for qurut; if you can find qurut or kashk at an Afghan or Iranian grocer, use it to replace up to a third of the yoghurt, softened in a little warm water. Seville oranges are in season in January and February, and the cut peel freezes well; out of season, dried bitter orange peel from Iranian grocers works, soaked a little longer. Short-grain rice such as Egyptian or Calrose. Lamb shoulder on the bone from any butcher. Everything else widely available.
US adaptation: Plain yogurt for qurut, as in the source; kashk from Persian grocers can replace up to a third. Seville oranges in winter, or dried bitter orange peel from Persian grocers. Calrose rice from any supermarket. Bone-in lamb shoulder from a halal butcher. Everything else widely available.
Cook’s note: Cut away every bit of pith from the orange peel and soak it well. Pith left on turns the whole pot bitter.
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