Lamb cooked in a sauce of jameed — dried, fermented yoghurt — piled on rice over thin bread, with toasted almonds and pine nuts.
What makes it mansaf
Lamb on the bone, cooked in jameed.
Rice over a layer of thin shrak bread.
Toasted almonds and pine nuts, and more sauce poured over at the table.
Where it comes from
It's Jordan's national dish, rooted in Bedouin hospitality, and the dish of weddings, funerals, reconciliations and welcomes. It's served on one great tray for everyone, and traditionally eaten standing, with the right hand, rice and meat pressed into a ball.
Jameed is the heart of it: yoghurt strained, salted and dried into hard balls to keep, then soaked and whisked back into a sour, savoury sauce. Karak, in the south, is especially proud of its jameed.
How it varies
With liquid jameed
The city shortcut, from a carton instead of dried balls.