Mahshi jazar, the stuffed yellow carrots of Homs

Mahshi jazar is the stuffed carrot dish of Homs. It uses large yellow carrots, not orange ones. They are hollowed out, soured for a few days, filled with rice and minced meat, and cooked in a sour broth with pomegranate molasses or with tomato paste. People from Homs who spoke to SANA count it among the dishes that set their city apart from other provinces.

Why Homs

Homs residents quoted by eSyria say the dish became tied to the city because large yellow carrots grow in quantity in the surrounding countryside. They add a detail: in the villages that grow the carrots, the dish is rarely cooked. It belongs to the city. English Wikipedia also lists it among the local dishes of Homs.

How the carrots are prepared

Hollowing is the hard part. A carrot is tougher than a courgette, and its outer skin is peeled as well. A few days before cooking, the hollowed carrots soak in warm water with salt, garlic and mint. This souring turns the carrot’s natural sweetness sour and lets the shell take up the spices.

Today the market takes on part of the work. In the Homs market carrots are sold already hollowed, ready to be filled at home. Some women cook the whole dish to order.

The filling and the broth

The filling is rice and minced meat, with spices that vary from family to family. One of the cooks says that, contrary to what people expect, it needs less rice than stuffed courgettes.

There are two ways to make the cooking liquid. The first is a sour broth based on pomegranate molasses; a Homs member of the Syrian History Society says orange juice goes in as well. The second is tomato paste.

The fatteh version

Some of the stuffed carrots are fried in oil or ghee and served as fatteh, layered with a sauce of yoghurt, tahini and lemon. This dish is called fattet al-jazar.

How it differs from Damascus and Aleppo

The mahshi entry on this site covers the stuffed courgettes and vine leaves of Damascus. Aleppo has stuffed carrots too; according to the Arabic Wikipedia article on Aleppine cuisine, they are cooked there in yoghurt or tomato juice. Three things mark the Homs version: yellow carrots, the souring before cooking, and pomegranate molasses.

When and where to eat it

In winter. Because it takes work and costs more than most home dishes, many households make it once a year, for a meal that brings the wider family together. It also appears on the Ramadan table in Homs. This is home cooking, not a restaurant plate; the closest you get in the city is the market where the hollowed carrots are sold.