Murabyan

Kuwaiti prawn rice, the shells simmered into the stock and the grains finished over a dill and dried lime base

Origin: Kuwait City & the Arabian Gulf

From the journey of Rice.

Murabyan takes its name from rubyan, the Gulf word for prawn, and it is the dish that most directly records what Kuwait was before oil. The town lived on the sea: pearl diving through the summer, fishing and dhow trade the rest of the year, and the shallow warm water of the northern Gulf produces prawns in quantity. Murabyan is what a fishing town does with them. The technique that lifts it is making stock from the shells and heads before the rice goes anywhere near the pot. Nothing is discarded; the shells are fried until they turn and give up their colour, simmered, and strained, and the rice then cooks in that liquid rather than in water. The prawns themselves go in only at the very end, since a prawn cooked through the whole rice is a wasted prawn. Dill is the other marker and it is used generously, which surprises people who expect Gulf cooking to be all warm spice. Fresh dill with prawns and dried lime is a northern Gulf combination shared with Basra and the Iranian coast, and it is what separates murabyan from the drier spiced rices further south. Loomi, the black dried lime, gives the sourness. It is a Gulf preservation technique of some antiquity, limes boiled in brine and dried hard in the sun until they rattle, and one or two pierced and dropped into a pot will scent the whole of it.

Ingredients

  • 700 g large raw prawns, shell on
  • 500 g basmati rice, rinsed and soaked 20 minutes
  • 2 onions, finely sliced
  • 5 tbsp ghee or oil
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 thumb of ginger, grated
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée
  • 1 tbsp bezar or baharat
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 2 dried limes (loomi), pierced
  • 1 large bunch dill, chopped
  • 1 green chilli, slit
  • 2 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 1.2 litres water

Method

  1. Peel the prawns, keeping every shell and head. Set the peeled prawns aside in the refrigerator.
  2. Fry the shells and heads in a tablespoon of the ghee over a high heat for four minutes, pressing them down, until they turn orange and smell sweet.
  3. Add the water, bring to a simmer, and cook for twenty minutes. Strain and discard the shells. You should have about a litre of pink stock; this is the foundation and water will not substitute.
  4. Fry the onions in the remaining ghee until deep golden, twelve minutes. Lift out a third and reserve.
  5. Add the garlic, ginger, bezar, and turmeric and fry for a minute, then the tomato purée for two more.
  6. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook down for eight minutes until thick.
  7. Pour in the prawn stock, add the pierced limes, the chilli, and the salt, and bring to a simmer. Taste and correct the salt now, before the rice goes in.
  8. Drain the rice and stir it in with half the dill. The liquid should sit about 1.5cm above the surface.
  9. Bring to the boil, cover tightly, and cook on the lowest heat for twelve minutes.
  10. Scatter the prawns over the surface, replace the lid, and cook for a final six to eight minutes. They will steam through without toughening.
  11. Rest off the heat for ten minutes. Fork through gently, scatter the reserved onions and the rest of the dill, and serve.

Notes

The shell stock is the dish and skipping it gives an ordinary spiced rice. Add the prawns at the end and only at the end. Dill goes in twice, half into the pot and half over the top, and the quantity should feel excessive. Pull the dried limes out once the rice is cooking, since left in through the resting they turn medicinal.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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