Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Abdulla, having failed to make much progress with the female travellers, suggested we go
to a tourist shop with him to look for souvenirs. We showed no interest in this commission-
raking scam, so he boldly suggested that we take him out for a meal. Instead of this, we
tactfully and spontaneously decided to give him the rest of the night off and we went off on
foot to eat in the first restaurant we came to. We decided to enter due to the insistence of
the waiter, who was touting for business in front of the restaurant and because his humour
charmed us and also because he could give as good as he got in response to our cheekiness.
This proved to be a good decision and a great meal (possibly the best and definitely the
most memorable of the trip). The chef had worked for a Saudi prince and the food was de-
licious. He didn't speak any English but we asked our friendly waiter to ask the chef for
his recipe. Next thing we knew, the chef appeared with a tray, on which he had samples of
all the ingredients of the meal we had just eaten. He then told us the recipe and I wrote it
down carefully in my diary. He explained that the meal was a special Bedouin recipe and
I thought he called in “Mansaf”. I therefore called it “Mansaf” for years later until I came
across the real Mansaf. I now think that the meal is a kind of Biryani, but out of habit, I still
call it Mansaf and I include the tried and trusted recipe.
Recipe for Bedouin “Mansaf”:
Ingredients:
cloves - sultanas - bay leaf - onions - 1 kilo chicken - Madras curry powder
- cardamom seed - cinnamon stick (kirfa) - salt - pepper - I glass 40 cc sunflower oil -
Maggie vegetarian stock cube - sunflower seeds - rice
Extras
: peanuts - sunflower seeds roasted at end to taste - raisins
Recipe:
• Cut chicken into pieces and boil for 15 minutes taking off the froth.
• Add a bay leaf and lightly fried onion next
• Then add all spices and the sultanas and boil for about an hour
• Remove some of the chicken stock to make the rice
• Take 1 glass of rice to 1 ½ glasses of the spicy and sweet chicken stock
• Add a small Maggie stock cube and touch of oil 5 minutes from the end
• Add the roasted nuts (peanuts & pistachio & sunflower seeds) to the dish as
it is served.
As we walked home to our modern concrete block of the Hotel Zenobia (named after the
immortal Queen), which was, bizarrely and very questionably, located in the middle of the
ancient ruins, it was quite cool and a warm, gentle wind was blowing. The funerary towers,
where rich families had buried their dead in a series of shelves, built into the towers, over
two thousand years earlier, were dotted around the valley as a reminder of the fall of em-
