The Levantine restaurant ritual of a mixed charcoal platter — shish lamb cubes, kofta fingers, shish tawook and sometimes kidneys — laid over flatbread that soaks up the drippings, with grilled tomato, onion and toum. In Amman and the West Bank the mashawi house is the default celebratory meal, the collective noun for the whole kebab family.
Also known as: mashawi, mashaweh, meshawi, mashawi mshakkaleh, mixed grill mashawi, مشاوي
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 400 g lamb leg, 3 cm cubes
- 400 g boneless chicken thigh, 3 cm cubes
- 400 g minced lamb
- 200 g yogurt
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp Lebanese seven-spice
- 1 onion, grated, plus a handful of chopped parsley
- 2 tomatoes
- flatbread and toum, to serve
How to make it
- 1
Run three preparations in parallel: chicken into yogurt, half the garlic, lemon and a pinch of seven-spice for 4 hours; lamb cubes tossed with oil, salt and more seven-spice; mince kneaded with grated onion, parsley, salt and the rest of the spice.
- 2
Shape the kofta mixture onto flat skewers in short fingers and thread the two meats onto their own sticks.
- 3
Grill over hot charcoal in sequence — lamb cubes about 10 minutes, shish taouk 8, kofta 6 — with the tomatoes blistering at the edge.
- 4
Line a tray with flatbread, pile every skewer on top and cover with more bread for 5 minutes.
- 5
Serve the whole tray with toum, letting everyone dig for the juice-soaked bread underneath.
Pro tip: The bread lining is not garnish — it catches the mixed drippings and becomes the platter's most fought-over piece.
The story of Mashawi Platter
Mashawi is the plural of mishwi — grilled things — and in Jordan and Palestine it names the restaurant ritual as much as the food. A mixed charcoal platter of shish lamb cubes, kafta fingers, shish tawook and sometimes kidneys is laid over flatbread that soaks up the drippings.
In Amman and across the West Bank the mashawi house is the default celebratory meal: a family occasion, a business lunch, a Friday with relatives. It is the collective noun for the whole kebab family, and ordering it means ordering an afternoon rather than a dish.
The technique that defines it
The platter is a coordination problem. Chicken tawook takes longest and goes on first; lamb cubes need eight to ten minutes; kafta needs five; kidneys and liver need two or three. A mashawi grill runs all of them simultaneously across a long charcoal trough with zones of different intensity.
The flatbread underneath is not a garnish. It goes onto the platter first and the skewers are laid over it directly from the fire, so the fat and juices soak downward through the whole service. By the time the meat is finished, the bread is the best thing on the plate, and Levantine diners eat it deliberately last.
Choosing your ingredients
Lamb shoulder for the cubes, chicken thigh for the tawook, a kafta mixture at 20 percent fat with parsley and baharat, and lamb kidneys if the table wants them. Each component has its own marinade: allspice and onion for lamb, yoghurt and lemon and garlic for chicken, nothing much for kafta.
Toum — the whipped garlic emulsion — is essential and is worth making properly with a slow oil addition rather than buying. Pickled turnips for their colour and sharpness, and a full mezze of hummus, moutabal, fattoush and tabbouleh before the meat arrives.
Mistakes that ruin it
Grilling everything at once at one heat
Four components with four timings. Run zones, or grill in sequence and hold in a warm place.
Skipping the bread base
It absorbs the drippings through the whole meal and is eaten deliberately. Serving the meat on a bare platter loses it.
One marinade for all the meats
Lamb wants allspice and onion without acid; chicken wants yoghurt, lemon and garlic. They are not interchangeable.
Serving the mezze at the same time
The mezze comes first and is eaten while the grill works. Everything arriving together is a European habit, not a Levantine one.
How it is served
One large platter over flatbread with grilled tomato, onion and long peppers, toum, pickled turnips and parsley, following a full mezze. Arak with ice and water, or fresh lemonade with mint. Tea and something sweet afterwards, and the meal takes hours by design.
Questions about Mashawi Platter
What is on a mashawi platter?
Cubed lamb (lahm mishwi), kafta fingers, shish tawook, and often kidneys or liver, laid over flatbread with grilled vegetables.
What does mashawi mean?
Grilled things, plural. It is the collective term for the whole grilled-meat family in Levantine Arabic.
Why is bread put under the meat?
It absorbs the fat and juices as the meat rests on it. By the end of the meal it is considered the best part of the platter.
What is toum?
The Levantine whipped garlic sauce — garlic, oil, lemon and salt emulsified into a thick white cream. It is the essential condiment for any mashawi.
