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Pork belly is simmered until tender, prawns are poached briefly, and vermicelli is cooked just al dente. Everything cools to room temperature, then rice paper rounds are dipped briefly in warm water and rolled around lettuce, herbs and the protein with the pink of the prawns showing through the wrapper. The peanut-hoisin sauce is the make-or-break: it should be thick, sweet and lightly garlicky.
Saudi Arabia's national dish, the one platter you'll meet at almost every gathering from family lunch through wedding banquet. You brown chicken pieces or lamb shoulder hard in a heavy pot, then build a base of onion, garlic and ginger softened in the same fat, with tomato and a spoonful of baharat (or a dedicated kabsa spice mix) blooming until the kitchen fills with cardamom and cinnamon. The protein simmers in tomato and stock until it's tender and pulling away from the bone, then long-grain rice goes in to cook absorption-style in the same liquid, drinking up every layer of flavour the broth carries. You finish with almonds toasted in butter, raisins plumped briefly, and a fresh salsa of tomato, onion, chilli and parsley spooned on the side to cut the richness. Eaten communally from the centre platter, with hands or a long spoon.
Kabuli pulao is Afghanistan's national dish, the centrepiece of every wedding, Eid and important Friday lunch: a layered pilaf of long-grain rice, slow-braised lamb, sweet carrot strands and butter-plumped raisins, all steam-finished together in one pot. You brown lamb shoulder hard, then braise it in spiced stock until the meat slips off the bone (that stock becomes the rice's cooking liquid). Carrots cut into matchsticks fry slowly in butter and sugar until they are golden and glassy. Raisins plump in butter. The rice parboils, then layers in the pot: lamb at the bottom, rice piled on top in a dome, drizzles of stock through the dome, lid clamped on tight. Twenty-five minutes of steam-cook and the rice emerges grain-separate and fragrant, ready to mound onto a platter with the carrots and raisins scattered across the top.
Oxtail simmers slow with aromatics until the meat is falling-tender. The cooking liquid thickens with toasted ground rice and peanut butter, gets coloured with annatto, and becomes a deep golden sauce. Vegetables join briefly at the end so they keep their texture. Bagoong on the side is non-negotiable.
Bone-in beef or lamb is browned, then simmered with onions, garlic, tomato and stock. Smooth peanut butter is whisked in halfway and the stew thickens to a velvety coating. Chunks of cassava, sweet potato and cabbage cook in the sauce towards the end. Serve over plain steamed white rice.
A two-part dish: a deeply concentrated prawn-and-chicken stock built from roasted prawn shells, layered with a freshly pounded laksa paste of dried chilli, galangal, lemongrass and candlenuts. The two are joined with coconut cream to create a glossy, fragrant broth that bathes rice vermicelli, tofu puffs and prawns. Finished at the table with sambal, lime, fresh coriander and bean sprouts.
The Saudi gathering platter built for the night when one cut of meat isn't enough. Three proteins share the same pot: lamb shoulder and beef chunks go in first with a kabsa-spiced tomato base for ninety minutes of slow simmer until they're meltingly tender, then chicken pieces drop in for the last thirty-five minutes (their cook time is shorter, so they go in later). The strained meat broth, deeply spiced from everything that has braised in it, becomes the cooking liquid for basmati scented with saffron and dried lime. At the end you arrange all three meats on top of the rice in the same platter and bring the whole thing to the centre of the table. The kind of dish you make for a wedding lunch, an Eid gathering, or the night the extended family arrives unannounced.