United Arab Emirates: thareed [vegan]

As the country’s name implies, the food of the United Arab Emirates is Arabic at its core ​[1]–[3]​. Situated in the southern corner of the Arabic peninsula with Iran just across the Persian Gulf, it is no wonder Persian dishes are popular, as are Levantine dishes like hummus, and falafel ​[1], [4]​.

Apart from meat (chicken, lamb, goat, camel, lots of fish) and dairy, grains like rice and wheat are staple foods along with vegetables like okra, eggplant, cabbage, cucumber, and tomato ​[1]​. Spices include cardamom, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili, ginger, pepper, turmeric, and thyme. Black limes, aka loomi, also make an appearance (remember Persian ghormeh sabzi?) ​[3]​. The nomadic Bedouine population mostly consume camel and goat milk along with their meat occasionally ​​[1]​​.

Bread with savory sides like garlic lentils, tahini, and foul madamas (fava beans with olive oil, garlic, and cumin) are popular early in the day ​[5]​. Lunch is often rice seasoned with saffron, cardamom, or raisins and served with some stew ​[1]​.

One popular dish, especially during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr (the festival at the end of Ramadan), is harees where wheat grains have been boiled for hours (with some meat) ​[4], [6]​. It sounds like a simple dish but wherever it is mentioned, it is spoken of very highly ​[2]​.

Levantine dishes like fattoush (bread salad), fatteh (see post on Syria), kousa mahshi (rice stuffed zucchini), and other well known middle eastern dishes like baba ghanoush, falafel, and hummus are also popular ​[2], [4]​. Desserts include baklava and deep-fried pancake balls drenched in spiced syrup called luqaimat or luqma ​[7], [8]​.

Thareed

For our trip to the United Arab Emirates, I chose to make thareed or tharid. Thareed is an arabic stew, usually made with lamb and especially popular during Ramadan ​[9]​. One thing that caught my interest was that it came highly recommended from the Prophet himself, comparing the dish to his favourite wife: “The Prophet said, ‘the superiority of A’isha to other women is like the superiority of tharid to other kinds of food'” ​[10]​.

In making this recipe, I visited multiple lamb based versions ​[11]–[14]​ and one vegan version with jackfruit instead of lamb ​[15]​. The recipe for the spice blend bzar is based on these sources ​​[16], [17]​​ while my recipe for the bread rugag is inspired by ​[18]–[20]​.

If you like satisfying cooking videos, you should check out this video on YouTube showing a street vendor making rugag with a very interesting technique. It did not look like that in my kitchen…

Intersting ingredients

Loomi – dried limes

Loomi are sundried limes used in Levantine, Persian, and Arabic cuisines. I previously used them when making ghormeh sabzi for my post on Iran, where they added a great sour/bitter/citrusy tanginess to the dish. You can try and substitute them for lime zest and juice but it is not the same.

Seitan

In this recipe I chose to substitute the lamb in traditional thareed with seitan. If you’re new to the vegan kitchen, chances are you are not familiar with seitan. Seitan is simply cooked gluten with spices. It doesn’t sound like much but it has a chewy texture and is often found in Chinese restaurants, vegan comfort food recipes, and comfort food restaurants as meat replacements. It is not a new-fangled invention either, it has been around for centuries in China and Japan where it has been eaten as a meat substitute by strict vegetarian Buddhists ​[21]​.

Nowadays, seitan is made fairly easily at home thanks to vital wheat gluten, a purified wheat flour with 70% or more gluten (normal all-purpose flour has around 10% gluten). Simply buy gluten flour, mix it with some seasoning (I like to pick seasoning based on what other spices go in the dish) and water, shape it into chunks and steam, boil or bake your dough to get seitan ​​[22], [23]​​. Then you can cut it into pieces and cook it in whichever dish you are making. You can vary the texture by ‘diluting’ the gluten with chickpea flour ​​[24]​​ or lentils ​​[25]​​ or similar. The cooking method also affects how the texture turns out.

Conclusion

This recipe for thareed turned into a very rich and creamy stew with lots of spices. Serving it on top of torn rugag was a nice experience and felt quite new. The recipe I made and the one posted below differ somewhat: the one I cooked was way too spicy so I removed some chili from the one below (I originally had a dried red chili in the bzar and 2 green chilies in the dish). Apart from the level of spiciness, my only regret was that the loomi (dried limes) didn’t come through more, I was really looking forward to them after their huge impact on the ghormeh sabzi (fried fenugreek) I made for Iran. This is probably not that important as many of the thareed recipes I read did not include loomi at all.

All in all, this was a very good stew with a creamy, rich sauce that clung nicely to the bread.

Print

Thareed with rugag

This rich vegan vegetable stew with pieces of seitan is a vegan version of thareed, a dish often eaten in the United Arab Emirates. Serve it on top of torn up pieces of freshly made rugag.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Arabic, UAE, United Arab Emirates, vegan

Keyword flat-bread, seitan, stew, vegan

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Henrik Persson | veganphysicist.com

Ingredients

• 1 Onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3-5 cm ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 small pumpkin or butternut squash, cut 400 g
• 3 tomatoes, fresh, chopped
• 1 small zucchini/squash/courgette, quartered and sliced 200 g
• eggplant, 200 g
• 1 carrot, cut into coins 100 g
• 2 potatoes, cut into small pieces 500 g
• 1-2 green chili, chopped
• 2 dried limes / black limes / loomi see note
• seitan (below) or other vegan protein of choice optional, see note
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Spices

• 1 tbsp bzar arabic spice blend, recipe below
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp chili, ground
• 2-4 pods cardamom
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt

Bzar spice blend – yield: 3 tbsp

• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds
• ½ tsp cinnamon, ground
• ½ tsp nutmeg, grated

Rugag

• 3 dl all purpose flour
• 2.5 dl water
• ½ tsp salt

Seitan

• 2 dl vital wheat gluten
• ½ dl chick pea flour
• 2 tsp bzar
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ½ dl soy sauce
• 1.5 dl water
• 1.5-2 L vegetable stock for simmering.

Instructions

Bzar

• Place all the whole spices in a spice grinder or mortar. Grind.
• Mix in the preground spices.

Seitan (if using)

• Note that seitan can be made a fwe days in advance.
• Mix vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour and spices.
• Mix 100 mL soy sauce with half the water and stir into the gluten mix.
• Add the rest of the water, working it into the dough.

  The dough should be a bit sticky but form a stretchy lump.
• Knead the dough for a while.
• Prepare the broth by bringing 2 L of vegetable stock to the boil in a wide pot.
• Shape the seitan dough into chunks or patties, whichever shape you like really.
• Add seitan to water, reduce to a simmer.
• The Seitan will float. Flip the pieces every now and then.
• Simmer for about an hour.
• Let cool in the stock before proceeding.

Thareed

• Chop the onion and mince the garlic and ginger. Chop pumpkin and potatoes into 2-3 cm chunks and slice the carrot, eggplant and zucchini into 0.5 cm or less slices.
• Fry the onion, eggplant, garlic and ginger until soft and translucent and the onion starts to brown.
• Stir in tomato paste, all the spices (including loomi) and carrot, potato and pumpkin.
• Add 0.5 L water.
• Simmer for 20 minutes. Add a bit of water if needed.
• If using: cut the seitan into 3 cm pieces. Add to the pot.
• Simmer for another 15 min. Add a bit of water if needed.
• Add the zucchini.
• Simmer for another 10 min. Add a bit of water if needed.
• Taste and adjust level of salt and spiciness.
• Serve on torn up pieces of rugag.

Rugag

• While the thareed is simmering, make your rugag.
• Mix flour, salt and water until all lumps are gone.
• Heat a pan on medium-high flame. It should be really hot.
• Add 0.5 dl (1/3 cup) of batter to the pan and spread it out using a spatula. The batter should cook and stick to the pan instantly. Spread as thin as you can.
• Cook on each side for a few minutes.
• Cook until all the batter is gone. Should make ~6-8 pieces.

Notes

Loomi: This ingredient adds a nice bitter/sour citrusy flavour to the dish. If you can’t find it, you can use some lime zest and juice.If using fresh lime, add this toward the end of the cooking process.

Seitan: instead of making your own seitan, you can use a storebought vegan protein of your choice or jsut omit this completely for a rich vegetable stew instead. Seitan can preferably be made in advance to reduce the total cooking on the day of making thareed.