Mehyawa

Many residents enjoy Mehyawa, a Persian-inspired sauce. When you learn how Mehyawa is prepared, it may not appeal to you, but you don't want to miss out on one of Bahrain's best local inventions. Anchovies are fermented for a few days to give them their distinct flavor, then blended with spices like anise, coriander, and cumin to make Mehyawa. After that, it's combined into a sauce-like texture that may be poured over other meals. It's sometimes available at local bakeries, where it's served with freshly baked Iranian bread or reqaq, a thin wafer-like bread.

Ingredients

• 500 g Sardine fish, 500 g Mustard, 250 g Fennel, 4 Cups salt, Water

Instructions

• Wash the sardine fish thoroughly to remove any sand that clings to the fish. Fill a pottery dish with water and pour salt into the water and dissolved. Pour the washed fish into the pot. In other words we put fish in salt-water solution.
• The water should be about ten inches above the fish. Now cover the dish with a clean cloth and wrap it around with a cushion and then place the pot under the sunlight for at least one month.
• Of course, thus time varies depending on the heat or cold of the air, and the colder the weather, the longer the time required.
• When finished, pour the contents of the pot into a drain under another pot (keep in mind that the resulting fish water should not be discarded) and rub the fish with two hands to completely crush and water extras it completely out.
• Fish waste is left to be discarded.
• Mix the water of the drained fish with the mustard.
• Pour the mixed material into the pot and wrap it around with a cloth and place in a sunny place until it reaches fullness. Of course, depending on the cold and warm weather, the time for mahyawa to reach and prepare varies, but usually in warm weather it is sufficient for 10 to 15 days and after this time the mahyawa is ready to use.
• Once the mahyawa has arrived, it should be stirred twice a day.
• Along with roasted mustard, other spices such as: fennel, coriander, seeds are milled and added to fish water and sometimes dried orange peel is added to the material (orange peel should not be milled).
• Of course, spices added to mahyawa also in some areas are cumin, black pepper, and sesame.
• Mahyawa is roasted in a pan with some oil and served for breakfast with bread.