Fisherman's Plate · Rice & Fish
Sayadieh
Photo: young shanahan / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Its name comes from sayyad, Arabic for fisherman, and the rice gets its deep brown color not from the fish but from onions fried almost black before they go into the pot.
Whole fish is simmered into a stock that colors and flavors rice cooked with deeply caramelized onions and a warm baharat spice blend, then the fish is set on top and finished with toasted pine nuts and almonds. It's the everyday plate of Lebanon's old Phoenician fishing ports, Sidon and Tyre.
Why it's made this way: The dish grew directly out of the daily catch in Lebanon's ancient coastal ports, using the whole fish — bones, head, and all — to build the stock that flavors the rice.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
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