Kafta bi tahini, the Damascus tray bake

This is not a grill. It is a tray: minced meat spread flat, potato and onion laid over it, and the whole thing finished under a sauce of tahini, lemon and garlic. In Damascus the tray belongs to the home kitchen, and the baking is often done by the neighbourhood oven.

How the tray is built

Minced meat, parsley and onion are chopped fine and worked together; the mixture is pressed into the tray by hand, about a finger thick. Slices of potato and rings of onion go on top. So far the recipe is familiar. What sets the dish apart comes next.

The first water is thrown away

Some water is poured into the tray and it goes into the oven for 5 minutes. That water is then poured off completely — it carries the first juices of the meat, and their heavy smell with them, so it does not stay in the tray. In its place goes a sauce of tahini loosened with lemon juice and crushed garlic, and the tray returns to the oven until the sauce thickens. Skip the step and the sauce stays thin, cut with meat juice.

Kafta or lahme

Damascus has its own naming rule for this tray. If there is parsley in the mixture the dish is kafta bil siniyeh; without parsley it is lahme bil siniyeh. The tahini version is a state of its own, and in most households it goes by kafta bi tahini. Asking settles it: ask what is in the mixture and they will tell you which one this is.

Where to find it

It is not a restaurant line. In the old city and the older quarters the tray is made at home and sent to the neighbourhood oven. That oven holds a heat better suited to this tray than a domestic one. Towards midday you see people carrying trays away from its door. Do not look for it on a menu — ask at places that write up the dish of the day.