Kafta bil Sanieh (Lamb and Potato Bake)

About Kafta bil Sanieh (Lamb and Potato Bake)

Kafta bil sanieh is a Levantine tray bake — sanieh means the round baking tray it's cooked in — that turns spiced ground lamb into a one-dish family meal. The kafta itself is simply seasoned: lamb worked with grated onion, parsley and warm allspice, then pressed flat into the pan rather than shaped into the usual skewered fingers. Over it go layers of sliced potato and tomato and a pour of canned tomatoes, and the whole thing roasts together until the potatoes are tender and the meat has firmed into a savoury base beneath the fruit and sauce. It's a staple of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian home cooking, the kind of dish made in quantity and set down in the middle of the table.

What you get is deeply savoury and juicy: the lamb renders its fat upward into the potatoes so they cook in meat drippings and tomato, while the allspice gives the familiar sweet-warm perfume of Middle Eastern kitchens. There's little sharp heat here — the pleasure is in richness and softness, the tomatoes going jammy and the potatoes soaking up sauce at the edges. It's typically served with plain rice or flatbread to catch the tomato liquor, and it holds and reheats well, which makes it good for feeding a crowd or getting ahead of a busy week. The appeal of this version is its ease: everything is layered into a single tray and baked in about half an hour of oven time, no browning or skewering required.