Saltah (Yemeni Foul Stew with Frothy Hilbeh) 🫘

Name: Saltah (Yemeni Foul Stew with Frothy Hilbeh)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 75 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Yemeni
Ingredients: 400 g dried fava beans (or 2 cans foul mudammas), soaked overnight if dried; 2 tbsp ground fenugreek seed (hilbeh); 1 zucchini, diced; 1 tomato, grated; 1 onion, sliced; 4 garlic cloves; 2 tbsp tomato paste; 1 tsp cumin; 1/2 tsp turmeric; 1 hot chili (or 2 tbsp harissa-style shatta); Big handful fresh coriander or spinach, chopped; 3 tbsp oil or ghee, plus more for frying; Salt; Bread or flatbread pieces, to layer; Optional: 200 g lamb cubes; fried; 1 egg; poached in the foam

Saltah is Yemen's cult breakfast-lunch hybrid and a chemistry demo: a warm pool of seasoned foul mudammas (fava-bean base) and sautéed vegetables gets crowned with fenugreek froth — hilbeh, soaked seed paste whipped until it foams like a cappuccino — then buried under chili-flecked sahnawin bread and fried lamb. In Sanaa, families eat it communally from a stone bowl called a madas, and the waiter stirs it into a unified scoop. It's earthy, tangy, garlic-forward and faintly bitter from fenugreek, unlike anything in the broad bean canon. The froth is the magic: make it fresh or don't bother.

Sanaa Yemeni ⏱ 75 min Medium

Method

1

Hilbeh foam: whisk fenugreek powder into 2 cups warm water, cover, soak 4 hours. It turns gelatinous and smells strong — trust the process.
2

Meanwhile boil soaked favas until mushy (canned: just warm and mash half). Set aside.
3

In a pot, soften onion and garlic in oil, add zucchini 5 minutes, then grated tomato, tomato paste, cumin and turmeric; simmer into a thick sauce, 10 minutes. Season salt; stir in chopped greens at the end.
4

Blend the soaked fenugreek water with a hand mixer 1-2 minutes until it foams into a stiff, pale mousse.
5

Assemble: torn bread in a wide bowl, foul beans over it, the vegetable sauce on top. Spoon the fenugreek foam like a cloud. Finish with fried lamb, chili oil and a poached egg if you're doing it fully.
6

Everyone stirs their own scoop. Eat hot, standing your ground against the fenugreek's assertive bitterness — it's an acquired love, and worth acquiring.

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Saltah (Yemeni Foul Stew with Frothy Hilbeh) 🫘

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