Sharhat ‘ala ‘Ajin (lamb slices on dough)

Sharhat ‘ala ‘ajin means slices on dough. Pounded slices of lamb and pieces of tail fat are spread over a yeasted dough and baked for about ten minutes. The fat runs into the dough, so the bread comes out soft and rich. It belongs to the old grill and oven culture of Damascus. As lamb grew dearer, it grew rarer.

What goes on it

Only lamb or mutton, from the back. Beef is not used, because it does not cook easily in the oven. The slices are seasoned with salt and black pepper and pounded; no other spice goes in. With them come pieces of tail fat, called liyyeh. The ingredients the cooks list also include sanasil, bony pieces from the ribs and spine.

The dough

Water, salt, flour, a pinch of sugar and yeast. No milk, no oil. It should be soft and well risen. There is no fixed measure: every flour takes up water differently.

How it differs from sfiha

Sfiha, or lahm bi-ajin, is made with minced meat, and its topping holds onion, tomato and spices. There is no mince here. The meat lies on the dough as whole pounded slices and takes its flavour from the lamb and the tail fat, not from spice. The Damascus tray bake of meat is a different dish again: there the meat cooks with potato and tomato in a tomato-paste broth.

Where it is eaten

In Damascus, to order, at shops that combine a butcher’s counter with a grill, and at bakeries. A butcher working in the Mezzeh district since 1981 said in 2021 that demand had fallen with the price of lamb, and that the dish had become an expensive Damascene meal. In 2023, when the old Damascus grill houses were remembered in print, it was named in the same line as kebab, shuqaf cubes and kastaleta chops.