Sheikh al-Mahshi

The filling is meat and pine nuts with no rice in it at all, and it finishes in a yoghurt sauce.

Lamb, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

the courgettes

• 12 small fat courgettes

the filling

• 500 g minced lamb
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 100 g pine nuts
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons salt
• black pepper

the yoghurt sauce

• 1 kg thick yoghurt
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons cornflour
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 2 teaspoons dried mint
• salt

Method

1. THE FILLING IS MEAT AND PINE NUTS WITH NO RICE IN IT AT ALL, and it finishes in a yoghurt sauce. Both halves separate this from the rice-stuffed courgettes on their own page, which use the same vegetable and are cooked in tomato. Here the shells are packed with nothing but spiced lamb and a great deal of pine nuts -- a hundred grams for twelve courgettes -- and then poached in a garlicky yoghurt sauce until they are tender. The result is rich and white and faintly sour; the rice version is lighter and red. They are not variants of one dish so much as two dishes that share a vegetable.
2. THE YOGHURT IS STABILISED WITH EGG AND CORNFLOUR OR IT WILL SPLIT. One egg and two tablespoons of cornflour whisked into a kilo of yoghurt before any heat touches it. The courgettes then simmer in it for twenty-five minutes, which plain yoghurt could not survive -- it would break into curds and whey within a minute of reaching a simmer and the dish would be unservable.
3. IT IS BROUGHT UP SLOWLY AND STIRRED IN ONE DIRECTION UNTIL IT BOILS ONCE. Whisked constantly over a medium-low heat until it comes to a single boil, and only then do the courgettes go in and the heat drops. That one boil sets the egg and the starch through the whole sauce; after it, the sauce is safe. Before it, a still moment at the bottom of the pan is where it catches and splits.
4. THE COURGETTES ARE HOLLOWED BUT LEFT WHOLE, AND NOT PACKED TIGHT. A corer or a narrow knife from the stem end, leaving a wall a few millimetres thick and the far end closed. Filled about four-fifths full, because lamb swells a little and a tightly packed shell splits along its side.
5. THE PINE NUTS ARE TOASTED IN BUTTER FIRST AND GO IN WHOLE. Until golden, then lifted out and folded into the cooled filling. Added raw they stay soft and are lost; toasted, they are the texture the dish is named for being generous with.
6. THE DRIED MINT GOES IN AT THE END, NOT THE START. Rubbed between the palms into the finished sauce. Simmered for twenty-five minutes it tastes of hay.
7. The courgettes HOLLOWED from the stem end with a corer, leaving a wall a few mm thick and the far end CLOSED.
8. The butter melted, the pine nuts toasted until GOLDEN and lifted out.
9. The onions softened 8 MINUTES, the lamb browned hard and cooked until the pan is dry, and the spices and seasoning stirred in.
10. Cooled, then the toasted pine nuts folded through.
11. The shells filled FOUR-FIFTHS full, not packed.
12. The yoghurt whisked SMOOTH with the egg, cornflour and garlic paste in a wide pan.
13. Brought slowly to a SINGLE BOIL over a medium-low heat, WHISKED CONSTANTLY.
14. The courgettes lowered in and the heat dropped to a bare simmer.
15. Cooked, uncovered, 25 MINUTES, until a skewer slides through a courgette easily.
16. Salted, and the dried mint RUBBED BETWEEN THE PALMS over the pan.
17. TESTED: the sauce should be smooth and ivory with no grain to it. Any curdling means it did not reach its boil, or was rushed.
18. Served hot, with rice.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Lebanon · All recipes