Fahsa is a Yemeni lamb or beef stew made with few ingredients, including spices and vegetables. It is traditionally cooked in a madra stone pot and served with a fenugreek seed paste garnish called hulba.
Fahsa is a lamb or beef stew that is cooked until tender and then mixed with spices and vegetables. It is one of the two national dishes of the country of Yemen, along with salta, a stew very similar to fahsa. There are very few ingredients in fahsa, making it a heavy dish of braised or boiled meat and onions. The finished stew is usually topped with a paste made from soaked fenugreek seeds and served with bread. Authentic preparation uses a special type of stone pan known as a madra, although any pot or pressure cooker can be used.
The dish begins with the meat, usually beef or lamb that has been diced. The meat can be boiled in water until very tender and easily broken into shreds or small pieces, or it can be quickly browned in oil to develop color and then finished off with the rest of the stew. Whichever method you use, the end result should be meat in very small pieces that can easily be eaten in single bites.
The dish’s other ingredients include garlic and spring onions which are pan-fried before the meat is added, whether it has been boiled in advance or not. Water or stock is added to the pot and the ingredients are allowed to cook until the liquid has reduced and starts to thicken, which can take several hours. After reduction, spices such as coriander, chilli and cumin are added along with a little more water, which can be reduced a second time. At this point, tomatoes are sometimes added as well.
A traditional way of cooking and serving fahsa is with a special type of Yemeni pot known as a madra. A madra is a thick-walled stone vessel that resembles a deep bowl. It can be used over a fire like any other cookware and can also be used in an oven. A madra is made from stone, so it is able to retain heat for a significant amount of time once removed from the stove. This means that fahsa cooked and served in a madra can stay hot throughout the entire meal.
After the cooking fahsa has reduced a second time, it is ready to serve. A garnish sauce known as hulba is assembled by taking fenugreek seeds that have been soaked overnight and mashing them into a paste that includes garlic, lemon juice, fresh coriander, and a few tomatoes. This mixture is poured over the finished stew before serving, sometimes with bread such as pita.
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