Yemeni Cuisine

Yemeni cooking is the closest thing to old traditional cooking on the Arabian peninsula, and what most distinguishes it is that it still uses methods centuries old with barely any modification.

Mandi and haneeth

Mandi is meat roasted in a pit above the rice, so the juices run down into the grain and the smoke works into both. Haneeth is the same idea, but the meat is wrapped and steamed. Neither has an equivalent in any other Arab cuisine.

Saltah and fenugreek

Saltah is the Yemeni everyday dish: a meat or vegetable broth in a stone pot (madar) served still bubbling, topped with whipped fenugreek. The fenugreek is soaked and beaten until it becomes a white foam — the first signature of Yemeni cooking.

Zahawiq

Zahawiq is a hot sauce of tomato, chilli and garlic crushed in a stone mortar, served alongside almost everything.

Bint al-sahn

Bint al-sahn is a Yemeni sweet of very thin layered dough, brushed with ghee, baked and covered with honey and nigella seeds. It is sometimes served as a main course rather than a dessert.