#54 Kuwait

It’s only a short trip across the Persian Gulf from Iran to the country in the world that most looks like Darth Vadar.

Kuwait has no permanent surface water, barely any soil because it’s all desert, and it’s boiling hot! Most of the population therefore lives on the edge of the desert in the coastal conglomeration of Kuwait City. Dating as far back as the 17th century, Kuwait City was a small fishing town, and later evolved into a key trading centre between the Persian Gulf, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean thanks to its deep natural harbour. The city today is a modern metropolis thanks to Kuwait having the sixth largest oil reserves on earth.

Kuwait shares much of its culinary customs with the other Arab states (Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, and parts of Iraq). Falafel, hummus, ful (stewed fava beans) and khubz (pita bread) are the cornerstones of everyday fare, and, as across the region, kebabs and shawarmas are ubiquitous.

Other Kuwaiti dishes

Fluffy basmati rice is the staple ingredient for many dishes. As the desert provides minimal opportunity for agriculture, most of the country’s rice is imported from India.

Rice infused with spices like turmeric, curry powder, cloves, etc. is the base for some of the most popular dishes. Machboos is considered to be the national dish of Kuwait, which consists of spiced rice topped with slow cooked meat and a tomatoey sauce. The meat is usually mutton or chicken and never pork, as it is banned in Kuwait, along with alcohol, and also cross-dressing. A slightly more exciting rice dish is maqlooba. This popular dish is made by layering vegetables in the bottom of a pan, followed by meat and rice, and cooking everything slowly together in the pot. Maqlooba is served by turning the whole lot out of the pan onto a plate, a bit like a vegetable upside down cake.

Kuwait City’s history as a fishing centre is no doubt the reason for the popularity of dishes like mutabbaq samak, another spiced rice dish, served with a whole crispy fried fish, raisins and nuts on top. Murabyan is another rice and seafood dish, where the rice is cooked together with marinated prawns and topped with more prawns in a spicy sauce.

As far as I am concerned, I think Kuwait might have one of the best celebration dishes on the planet, because I really love lamb! Quozi is an ENTIRE lamb stuffed with vegetables, nuts, dried fruits and spices, and served on a bed of rice. It’s traditionally cooked in a pit oven over coals to give it a smoky flavour…Y-U-M!

If you get bored of rice, there is harees, a cheap, filling sort of wheat porridge eaten across the Middle East, flavoured with cinnamon and black pepper, which is used plentifully in Kuwaiti cooking. Sometimes meat is added, and it’s often served during Ramadan.

Gabout

China has dim sum, momos are eaten in the Himalayas, khinkali in Georgia, and Kuwait has gabout. Gabout are stuffed flour dumplings served in a mutton, lamb or chicken stew.

I struggled to find any definitive recipes for this meal. It’s probably the sort of dish that every mother and grandmother has their own secret recipe for. I watched a few YouTube videos and winged it with what I had available.

One ingredient that I don’t have in my store cupboard is blackened lemon (although I believe you can buy these in Waitrose). They’re actually dried limes which are used a lot in Arabic recipes and add a citrusy, earthy flavour.

My dumpling inner was onion fried in butter with raisins, curry powder and a tiny pinch of sumac, in lieu of blackened lemon. The dumpling outer was simply plain flour and water (2:1 ratio) seasoned with plenty of black pepper, formed by mixing, needing, resting, flattening and filling.

I made the broth element of this dish starting with frying off some onion and throwing in: varying amounts of the spices pictured below, tomatoes, and lamb stock. I also added a carrot, you know, because veg is good for you.

The mutton, lamb or chicken for the stew in Kuwait would be cooked on the bone in the broth, but as I happened to have a significant quantity of leftover roast lamb (because, as discussed, I love lamb), I added this in chunks, along with the dumplings, towards the end of the cooking. I served this with chopped nuts on top because it felt like the right thing to do.

This was absolutely delicious. The flavours were warm and fragrant, the dumpling skins soaked up the spicy juice they were cooked in, and the curried raisin and onion filling was delightful.