Four Yemeni dishes that use honey

Honey is not a garnish in Yemeni cooking. It is poured, not drizzled, and in several dishes it is the point rather than the finish. These four are the ones worth knowing.

Bint al-sahn

The best known Yemeni sweet and effectively the national dish. Very thin layers of enriched dough are stacked with clarified butter between each one, baked until the top is golden, then flooded with honey while still hot.

It is served at weddings and at Eid, and often eaten with the hands, torn from the edge. Because the honey meets a hot dish here, this is the one place where using your most expensive honey is a waste — the aromatics go. A good everyday honey does the job.

Masoub

Overripe bananas mashed with crumbled flatbread, then built up with honey, cream and often dates and nuts. It is a breakfast dish and a substantial one. The honey goes on at the end, off the heat, so a distinctive honey is worth using.

Honey with labneh

Barely a recipe: thick strained yoghurt, a pool of honey, good olive oil and bread. The sourness of the labneh against a dense caramel honey is the entire idea, and it is the simplest way to actually taste a single-origin honey rather than just eat it.

Honeycomb, plainly

Comb honey is eaten as it comes, wax and all, cut into pieces with bread or on its own. The wax is chewed and discarded or swallowed — both are normal. It is the most direct way honey is eaten anywhere, and needs no preparation at all.

One rule that covers all of them

Add honey last and off the heat wherever the recipe allows. Almost every mistake people make with expensive honey is a heat mistake.