Harees

The wheat and meat porridge of Arabia, cracked grain and lamb simmered for hours and then beaten to a smooth, pale, savoury cream finished with hot ghee

Origin: Riyadh and the Najd, Saudi Arabia

From the journey of Wheat.

Harees is what Arabia does with wheat when it is not making bread, and it is the dish of Ramadan across the whole peninsula and the Gulf. Whole or cracked wheat and meat are simmered together for three or four hours until both have collapsed, and then beaten hard with a wooden pestle until the distinction between grain and flesh disappears entirely and the pot holds a single pale, glossy, savoury cream. Hot ghee is poured over at the table. It is very old. Something extremely close to it is described in the Abbasid cookery books, and the dish appears across a huge territory: harissa in the Levant and Armenia, keşkek in Anatolia, halim or haleem in Persia and the Deccan. The technique of beating a long-cooked grain and meat together into a homogeneous mass is one of the oldest continuous cooking methods still in daily use. The name causes trouble in English. Levantine and Armenian harissa is this dish; Tunisian harissa is a fiery paste of dried chillies and has no connection to it whatever, sharing only an Arabic root meaning to pound or crush. The two are routinely confused on menus outside the region. Wheat is not the crop the Arabian Peninsula is famous for, but the oases of the Najd and Al-Ahsa, and the terraced fields of the Yemeni highlands, have grown it since antiquity, and the Saudi wheat programme of the 1980s briefly made the kingdom a net exporter before the water cost forced it back. Jareesh, the coarser Najdi version made with crushed rather than whole wheat and often soured with yoghurt, sits beside harees on the same tables.

Ingredients

Grain

400 g whole wheat grains (harees wheat), or coarse cracked wheat

Meat

700 g lamb shoulder on the bone, or chicken thighs

Liquid

2 litres water

Aromatics

1 cinnamon stick
4 green cardamom pods, bruised
1 dried lime (loomi), pricked, optional

Seasoning

2 tsp fine salt

To finish

80 g ghee
0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp sugar, optional

Method

Rinse the wheat well and soak it overnight in plenty of cold water. Drain.
Put the drained wheat, the lamb, the water, the cinnamon stick, cardamom, and dried lime into a large heavy pan. Bring to the boil, skim thoroughly, then reduce to the barest simmer.
Cover and cook for three to four hours, stirring every half hour and topping up with hot water if it threatens to catch, until the wheat has burst and the meat is falling apart.
Lift out the bones, the cinnamon stick, the cardamom pods, and the dried lime. Pull the meat apart with two forks and return it to the pan.
Add the salt and now beat the mixture hard with a wooden pestle, a sturdy spoon, or an electric hand whisk, for five to ten minutes, until it is completely smooth and no strands of meat or whole grains remain.
Taste and adjust the salt, adding the sugar if you want the slightly sweet Emirati version.
Spread into a wide shallow dish, make a well in the centre, pour in the melted hot ghee, and dust with ground cinnamon. Serve hot.

Notes

Levantine harissa is this dish. Tunisian harissa is a chilli paste. They share an Arabic root meaning to pound and nothing else at all. The dish is closely related to Anatolian keşkek, Persian halim, and Deccani haleem, all of which beat a long-cooked grain and meat together. Chicken makes a lighter harees and is common outside Ramadan; the method is identical but the cooking time drops to about two hours. It thickens considerably as it cools and is loosened with a little hot water when reheated. It freezes well.

The Gastrographer

Name: Harees
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 4 h
Total time: 4 h 15 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Saudi Arabia
Ingredients: 400 g whole wheat grains (harees wheat), or coarse cracked wheat; 700 g lamb shoulder on the bone, or chicken thighs; 2 litres water; 1 cinnamon stick; 4 green cardamom pods, bruised; 1 dried lime (loomi), pricked, optional; 2 tsp fine salt; 80 g ghee; 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon; 1 tsp sugar, optional

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control