What is mansaf?
Mansaf is Jordan’s national dish. It’s what gets served at weddings, funerals, holidays, and Friday lunches — the dish that shows up when the occasion matters.
At its center: lamb, slow-cooked until it falls off the bone, bathed in jameed — a fermented yogurt sauce that gives mansaf its distinctive tang. Over a bed of rice. Topped with toasted almonds and pine nuts. Eaten traditionally from a shared tray, with the right hand.
The four things that make it mansaf
1. Jameed
Jameed is dried, fermented sheep’s yogurt. It’s what tells mansaf apart from every other lamb-and-rice dish in the region. Without jameed, it’s something else.
2. The lamb
Slow-cooked until tender. Not ground, not chopped into cubes — served on the bone, the way Jordan has served it for centuries.
3. Shrak bread
A thin, wide flatbread laid under the rice. It soaks up the jameed. You tear off pieces to eat the meat.
4. The nuts
Toasted almonds and pine nuts on top. Crunch against tenderness.
How it’s served at Khashoka
Mansaf at our Richardson table is $29. It arrives on a platter, meant to be shared. We include enough shrak for the rice, and the jameed is poured tableside.
Where mansaf comes from
Bedouin tribes in the Jordanian desert made mansaf first — using what was available: yogurt preserved as jameed, lamb from the flock, rice brought in via trade routes. It’s a dish shaped by climate and generosity: food that had to keep, made in quantities built for hosting.
Today it’s the dish every Jordanian kitchen knows how to make. Ours is rooted in that tradition.
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Frequently asked
What is mansaf?
Mansaf is Jordan's national dish. It's lamb slow-cooked in jameed — a traditional fermented yogurt sauce — served over rice and topped with toasted almonds and pine nuts. At Khashoka, mansaf is $29.