Tashreeb

torn flatbread laid in the bottom of the dish and drowned in the broth of a long-cooked lamb and chickpea stew

Origin: Baghdad & Iraq

From the journey of Wheat.

Tashreeb comes from the Arabic for drinking or soaking, and that is the whole technique: day-old flatbread is torn into the base of a wide dish and the broth of a stew is ladled over it until the bread has drunk as much as it can hold. The meat and chickpeas go on top. It is bread as the body of the dish rather than as the thing beside it. The idea is old and widespread, and Iraq's version sits in a family that includes Levantine fatteh, Yemeni and Gulf tharid, and Egyptian fattah. Tharid in particular has a standing in the Islamic tradition that few dishes do, being the subject of a well-known hadith comparing it favourably to other foods, and the family of soaked-bread dishes across the Arab world descends from that idea of using bread to carry broth. The practical logic is thrift. Flatbread goes stale within a day in a hot climate, and tashreeb is how a household uses it: nothing is wasted, and the bread is improved rather than merely rescued, since it holds the broth better dry than fresh. In Iraq it is most often made with lamb on the bone and chickpeas, seasoned with baharat and dried lime, and it is a winter dish and a Ramadan one. Variants use chicken, and a version with pumpkin, tashreeb shijar, is common in the south.

Ingredients

  • 6 day-old flatbreads or 4 samoon, torn into pieces
  • 1 kg lamb on the bone, in large pieces
  • 250 g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 4 tbsp tomato purée
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 dried limes (loomi), pierced
  • 2 tsp baharat
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 3 tbsp oil or ghee
  • 2 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 2 litres water

Method

  1. Brown the lamb in the oil in a large heavy pot, in batches, and set aside.
  2. Cook the onions in the same pot until golden, about ten minutes, then add the garlic for a minute.
  3. Stir in the tomato purée, baharat, and turmeric and cook out for three minutes.
  4. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook down for eight minutes.
  5. Return the lamb with the drained chickpeas, the pierced dried limes, the salt, and the water.
  6. Simmer covered for an hour and forty minutes, until the lamb falls from the bone and the chickpeas are entirely soft. Fish out the dried limes once they have given their sourness, usually after an hour, or they turn bitter.
  7. Taste the broth and correct the salt. It should be well seasoned and clearly sour from the loomi, since the bread will dilute it.
  8. Tear the bread into rough pieces and lay them in the bottom of a wide serving dish in an even layer.
  9. Ladle broth over the bread until it is thoroughly soaked and just swimming, and leave for three minutes to drink it up.
  10. Arrange the lamb and chickpeas over the top and pour over a little more broth. Serve at once, before the bread turns to paste.

Notes

Day-old bread is better than fresh; fresh bread collapses into mush. Season the broth harder than you would drink it, because the bread flattens it. Assemble at the last moment and serve immediately, as tashreeb left standing for twenty minutes is a different and worse thing. Pull the dried limes once they have done their work, since they turn medicinal if left the full cook.

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