Yemeni cuisine (other Arab cuisines may be posted)

[al-Hasani]

This i have tried. This used to come from a somali doctor's home at iftaar. he was doing atakaaf with me some years ago. ​

Yes, East African (Horn of Africa) cuisine has a lot similarities with Yemeni cuisine due to Yemeni influences and also because that part of Africa was part of the ancient Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea trade. Ethiopian and Somalian cuisine are really great. It's a hybrid cuisine. They also got Italian influences due to them once being under Italian influence - Italian colonies. But once again those are not that well-known cuisines but I prefer them over many of the exposed and "boring" ME cuisines.

I often eat at Somali restaurants and never regret it, LOL.

Start a thread on it .


@al-Hasani Great thread . post more pics with food description . And i never knew yemen has such vast sea food dishes . In quite a few Indian dishes if we remove "extra spices" they will be quite similar to yemeni food . Post more .

Yes, told you about the many similarities. If you look at Arab cuisine from other Arab countries those similarities are much smaller. That's once again due to that ancient Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea trade that they were not a part of and due to the close geographic proximity. Many Indians or South Asians who have tried Yemeni cuisine notice that as well. What I like is that they don't overdue with the spices either as some spicy cuisines do for me. For instance some Indian food is simply too hot even for me. That destroys the dish because you can only taste the hot spices.
What is also used in Southern Yemen is coconut milk. Mostly in the border region with Oman. Coconut milk and rice is perfect to "cool down" spicy food or ingredients. But you know that as an India where you use it a lot especially in the South.

 

[RAMPAGE]

Yes, East African (Horn of Africa) cuisine has a lot similarities with Yemeni cuisine due to Yemeni influences and also because that part of Africa was part of the ancient Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea trade. Ethiopian and Somalian cuisine is great. It's really a hybrid cuisine. They also got Italian influences due to them once being under Italian influence - Italian colonies. But once again those are not that well-known cuisines but I prefer them over many of the exposed and "boring" ME cuisines.

Just realized that a decade has past since i met him.

Sent me a 2 liter ice cream pack the day before our Eid. the somalis celebrate Eid with KSA so he left the atakaaf a day before me. hope he's alright.

Somali arabic is different from KSA's arabic right ???

 

[al-Hasani]

Just realized that a decade has past since i met him.

Sent me a 2 liter ice cream pack the day before our Eid. the somalis celebrate Eid with KSA so i he left the atakaaf a day before me. hope he's alright.

Somali arabic is different from KSA's arabic right ???

Yes, Somali Arabic is closer to Yemeni Arabic. It's very similar to Yemeni Arabic. But Arabic is not the native language of Somalians. But they use it as a official language and language of business and trade. That has been the case for literary over an millennium.

We once had an Somalian brother on this forum. If he ever reappears he might be interested to make a thread about Somalian cuisine.

Languages of Somalia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Arabic spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea is also Yemeni Arabic. Due to geographic proximity and exposure to culture, Islam and trade.

 

[Cherokee]

Yes, told you about the many similarities. If you look at Arab cuisine from other Arab countries those similarities are much smaller. That's once again due to that ancient Indian Ocean/Arabian Sea trade that they were not a part of and due to the close geographic proximity. Many Indians or South Asians who have tried Yemeni cuisine notice that as well. What I like is that they don't overdue with the spices either as some spicy cuisines do for me. For instance some Indian food is simply too hot even for me. That destroys the dish because you can only taste the hot spices.
What is also used in Southern Yemen is coconut milk. Mostly in the border region with Oman. Coconut milk and rice is perfect to "cool down" spicy food or ingredients. But you know that as an India where you use it a lot especially in the South.

Post more sea food pics .

 

[al-Hasani]

Post more sea food pics .

Will have to wait until sometime tomorrow since I got a flu if that is ok? It takes a lot of time to make those posts and my head is going to explode. Have to eat and sleep. Unfortunately I also have to make an assignment so I would have to leave the forum anyhow.

In the meantime I can post a video of fishing from Socotra Island where there are many famous sea food dishes. The locals mostly relied on sea food to survive and the sea around them is extremely rich in terms of sea food. But today Somalian pirates are looming in the waters so I would not recommend sailing there alone!

 

[BATMAN]

Delicious food and very liveable and peaceful place.

 

[Targon]

I guess agriculture is more developed then rest of the peninsula ? its reflects it in its cuisine, looks far better then rest of peninsula cuisines, a fine mix of vegatables, sea food and meat.

Also seems like its have some similarities with ours, I notice Buraik and Ruumi(Anatolian?), Yogurt Salad(Like our Cacik?), Shakshouka(looks kinda different then ours), Fasolia, Saltah(Looks like our Menemen)

I presume its also influenced from Levantine cuisines.

 

[pak-marine]

Nothing beats yemeni mandi .. top of the league , amazing food ! double thumbs up to yemeni food and @al-Hasani for opening this thread

 

[Aslan]

@chak de INDIA​

You are very welcome! Sure, I will take a look at it. I promise.​

Fatta

Fatta (فتّة‎), meaning crushed or crumbs, is a sort of bread soup made with pieces of the Yemeni bread bits mixed with meat, broth and cooked vegetables making it soggy and mushy. As flatbreads quickly tend to get stiff when exposed to air, it is indeed a way of using stale bread. Fatta can also be made as a dessert with sweet ingredients including dates and honey. In Yemen, fatta is a common meal during the month of Ramadan.
Very often the meat used is grilled lamb meat. Chickpeas, yogurt, oil and butter are also often used.

Sahawiq

Sahawiq (سحاوق) is similar to Mexican salsa as it is cut up vegetables, with a tomato base usually including peppers, onions, and goat cheese. Consistency of the sauce runs from diced and chunky all the way to pureed, and even the style served at the same restaurant changes daily, sometimes red, sometime green with more emphasis on peppers, sometimes chunkier, sometimes smoother, sometimes with more cheese and sometimes with less. Sahawiq is generally served with the meal as a sauce to add in the soup, salad, stews in the black pots, with the bread (quite like eating chips and salsa), or really anything you like.

Yogurt Salad



Yogurt salad (سلطة خيار باللبن) is another sauce like sahawiq that can go with meat and rice dishes. It is usually made with yogurt, cucumbers and carrots.

Hulba

Hulba (حلبة, fenugreek in English) is a main ingredient of Yemeni food, particularly in saltah. It has a pretty unique taste.

Khubz

Khobz (خبز) means bread in Arabic and is a flatbread traditionally baked in a tanner.

Masoob

Masoob (معصوب ,ملكية) is a sweet and savory banana-based Yemeni dessert made from a base of bananas and ground flatbread with cream, cheese, dates, and honey. It's a very heavy dessert and is best shared with a group! But I really like it.

Sabayah

Sabayah (بنت الصحن) is layers of pastry with butter in between each layer and Yemeni honey and black sesame seeds on top.

Shakshouka

Shakshouka (شكشوكة‎‎) is a dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions and potatoes often spiced with cumin. There are many versions that range from looking like normal scrambled eggs with tomato and onion to the poached eggs in the photo above.

Fasolia

Fasolia (فاصوليا) is a red or white kidney bean dish with tomatoes, onions, and various vegetables and spices.

Qamir

Qamir (الخمير او المقصفص) is a fried dough sweet from Hadhramaut and it has similar cousins in East Africa, India, and other Arab countries. This sweet can be either sweet or savory. It's usually served during Ramadan along with the sambusa.

To be updated. Notice that this is just a small introduction.
​

WAllah his haram haidi. I am still trying to recover from my hospital stay, cant eat anything but fruits salads, and soups, and u are showing me this. Now tell u what once I am recovered, u are taking me out for dinner.

 

[Hussein]

@al-Hasani thank you.. wonderful post
@BLACKEAGLE
indeed we have all wonderful cuisine .. sadly not very well known (in France they know only Lebanese one and not so much)... another point that people don't know our cultures our cuisine our art mind .. because of all problems
but see this is another exemple our region is rich

 

[al-Hasani]

I guess agriculture is more developed then rest of the peninsula ? its reflects it in its cuisine, looks far better then rest of peninsula cuisines, a fine mix of vegatables, sea food and meat.

Also seems like its have some similarities with ours, I notice Buraik and Ruumi(Anatolian?), Yogurt Salad(Like our Cacik?), Shakshouka(looks kinda different then ours), Fasolia, Saltah(Looks like our Menemen)

I presume its also influenced from Levantine cuisines.

Arab cuisine is extremely diverse and rich. For various of reasons. Since the down of civilizations the native people of the ME (Semites and others) had advanced cuisine and the ME is also the region were agriculture first arose and were animals got domesticated. Sea food and the richness of spices is prevalent across the entire Arabian Peninsula due to that region being the crossroad of the world for millenniums and due to extensive trade routes since ancient times and even fairly recently. After all the entire Peninsula is surrounded by very fertile waters and tropical waters.

Dairy products is also a staple dish in the Arabian Peninsula and Arab world. That's pretty much as indigenous as it can get. Shakshouka is an Arab dish believed to be of Tunisian origins. Saltah is a indigenous Yemeni dish. Fasolia is eaten across the world and its origins are not known. Yes, Yemen just like KSA and Oman has tropical areas and tropical fruits such as banana, mango, coconut, guava, oranges, lemon, pineapples, grapes, water melons and many other fruits and vegetables. Pretty much everything. There are also monsoon rains in parts of Yemen, Oman and KSA known as Khareef in Arabic. Coffee was first cultivated in Yemen and from there spread to the remaining world. While tea, which originates in China was introduced a long, long ago and now also grows in Yemen.

Anyway Yemeni cuisine is quite well-known for being a unique cuisine in the ME and the most spicy one and most familiar with South Asian cuisine due to the 5000 year old trading and cultural ties with the Indian Subcontinent. So a rich cuisine. But not much well-known in the West.

Trade and cultural links between ancient Arabia and ancient India date back to third millennium BC.[1]

Heptulla, Nejma. Indo-West Asian relations: the Nehru era. Allied Publishers, 1991.ISBN9788170233404.

But of course the region has influenced each other so similar dishes go again and again in all ME countries. So no surprise.

Delicious food and very liveable and peaceful place.

Very welcome 7abibi.

Nothing beats yemeni mandi .. top of the league , amazing food ! double thumbs up to yemeni food and @al-Hasani for opening this thread

Indeed, Yemeni mandi is amazing. The best one and original one.

WAllah his haram haidi. I am still trying to recover from my hospital stay, cant eat anything but fruits salads, and soups, and u are showing me this. Now tell u what once I am recovered, u are taking me out for dinner.

Haha, Yemeni cuisine is very popular in Kuwait I hear. It is in the entire GCC. So it's about time for you to frequent some Yemeni restaurants. Hospital stay? Hope you are all right bro and nothing serious!

 

[Aslan]

Haha, Yemeni cuisine is very popular in Kuwait I hear. It is in the entire GCC. So it's about time for you to frequent some Yemeni restaurants. Hospital stay? Hope you are all right bro and nothing serious!

2 places that I like to eat at one is a Q8ti place, they sell this awesome majboos. And another is called Mamlika, Saudi place, best mandi u can get, I heard all their chefs are Yemeni.

I had lvl 3 pneumonia, and due to some mix up at the hospitals, I was late getting proper diagnosis by 4 days, so by the time I got to the hospital, I had swollen lungs, was dehydrated, 40+ fever, and some other stuff. The docs though I had H1N1, as I had all the symptoms, so they put me isolation. had to be there for 8 days till I got better. Still my vocals are not back I would say 75% recovered. So pray for me.

 

[al-Hasani]

2 places that I like to eat at one is a Q8ti place, they sell this awesome majboos. And another is called Mamlika, Saudi place, best mandi u can get, I heard all their chefs are Yemeni.

I had lvl 3 pneumonia, and due to some mix up at the hospitals, I was late getting proper diagnosis by 4 days, so by the time I got to the hospital, I had swollen lungs, was dehydrated, 40+ fever, and some other stuff. The docs though I had H1N1, as I had all the symptoms, so they put me isolation. had to be there for 8 days till I got better. Still my vocals are not back I would say 75% recovered. So pray for me.

I am sincerely happy that everything is well with you. I have a flu right now but that's nothing compared to what you had. Very happy that everything is more or less fine today. Hopefully nobody committed any mistakes in the health sector. I have no idea how it is in Kuwait.

 

[Pakistanisage]

Now I must go to Yemen to taste all these delicasies.......

 

[Aslan]

I am sincerely happy that everything is well with you. I have a flu right now but that's nothing compared to what you had. Very happy that everything is more or less fine today. Hopefully nobody committed any mistakes in the health sector. I have no idea how it is in Kuwait.

Private sector sucks balls, basically they just suck ur blood. And the gov hospitals are good, but they are too crowded. Khair Allah Kareem.

Now I must go to Yemen to taste all these delicasies.......

You can find almost all of it in Saudi as well, infact most of GCC. Except for Kuwait, as it is more influenced by the Northern arab like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and all. It I shall say is more preferred but still u find good Saudi food, some of which is carryover of the Yemeni one if I am not wrong.