Here’s a vision of street food: mounds of slowly cooked, spiced meat piled with onions, lemony-tart sumac and toasted pine nuts, all sitting on top of taboon or flatbreads to use as utensils. Musahkan is a famous, traditional comfort food recipe from the Levant, Palestine, and around Israel.
Widely thought of as the National dish of Palestine, and typically made with chicken, our lamb musahkan developed by Chef Bergo calls for lamb or goat, and preferably a shoulder or neck cut with lots of marbling and intra-muscular fat to ensure a juicy result. The end product is tender, tart, shredded meat, with plenty of juices to soak into flatbreads or warmed pita.
Chef Alan Bergo
Depending on how traditional you want to be, Chef also outlines a method for making simple flatbreads at home, although store-bought pita bread without pockets are a fine substitute. Baharat spice, commonly used in similar regional dishes, can be purchased online, at a local ethnic market, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, Chef has included a recipe for making your own.
Baharat Spice Mix Yield: ~ ¼ cup or enough for 4 recipes
5grams/ 1.5 Tablespoons ground black pepper
7grams/ 1 Tablespoons ground coriander
7grams/ 1 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1gram/ ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
5grams/ ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
5grams/ 1.5 Tablespoons ground allspice
5grams/ 1/2 Tablespoon ground cumin
7grams/ 1 Tablespoon ground nutmeg
Sumac Onions
6lbsyellow sweet onions
1cuprendered lamb fat or cooking oil
3cupswater or lamb stock
3tablespoonssumac
2teaspoonskosher salt
Flatbread
5cupsall purpose flour
1cupwhole wheat flour
2teaspoonssugar
1Tablespooninstant yeast
1/4cuplamb fatat room temperature
5cupswater
2teaspoons Kosher salt
Instructions
Lamb
Combine the lamb baharat, teaspoons of salt and saffron if using. Cover and refrigerate the meat overnight, turning occasionally.
Flatbread
Combine the flours, water, sugar, lard and yeast and mix well in a bowl. Cover the bowl with a plastic bag and allow to double in size, then refrigerate. The dough can be made ahead of time, up to a day or two.
Flour a work surface, then portion out roughly 2 ounce balls of dough.
Roll the dough into even-sized balls, then roll each one out with a rolling pin until they’re very thin. Drape the dough over a metal mixing bowl, and gently stretch until they’re round.
The flatbreads don’t have to be perfect. Heat a dry skillet wide enough to fit the flatbread rounds, and cook on medium high heat, without oil. The dough should puff up and brown. Working one at a time, brown the flatbreads on each side, then transfer to a towel to rest.
Sumac Onions
Dice the onions medium-large, then add the 2 teaspoons of salt and sweat in the lamb fat for 10 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally until the onions are wilted. Preheat the oven to 300.
Add the sumac, then transfer with the lamb and it's juices to a deep baking dish. Add the stock, cover with parchment, then foil, and bake for 2 hours or until the lamb is tender when scraped with a fork.
Shred the meat with 2 forks. Taste the lamb, adjust the seasoning for salt if needed, chill and reserve. Strain the reserved cooking liquid from the onions, keeping both separate. Chill the stock and onions. When the fat is chilled and set, scrape it off and discard, but leave a few tablespoons of it to add moisture to the finished dish. Traditionally this is often served quite oily.
Serving
To serve the lamb, dip or brush the flatbreads with some of the cooking liquid, then reheat in the oven, and use them to line a platter. Meanwhile, reheat the shredded lamb with some of the stock, and spoon a generous amount of onions onto each flatbread, arrange the shredded lamb on top of the onions, drizzling over any juices, sprinkle on the toasted nuts, reserved sumac to taste, and serve immediately.
Notes
Lamb shoulder is the best cut to use here as stew meat will dry out too much.