With the 2022 F1 season now officially underway, I’ll be covering here just how it all unfolded this weekend in Bahrain, before then taking a look forward to our next race, Saudi Arabia. The high-speed track in Jeddah saw plenty of action and drama when the teams visited there last year but, just as I’m excited to see what this year's race has in store for us, I’m also excited to share with you the delicious Saudi Arabian dish called Tharid. This lightly spiced lamb stew is incredibly easy to cook yet full of such unique and delightful flavours that it could easily become a dish you make again and again.
The Opening Race Of The 2022 Season
Formula 1 was finally back with us last weekend and the race in Bahrain was a reminder to us all of just exactly what we’ve missed. It was Ferrari and Red Bull that arrived at the first race comfortably with the two fastest cars on the grid, but it was the Italian team’s Charles Leclerc who managed to stick it on pole after a closely matched qualifying session on the Saturday. The signs were looking good for Ferrari going into the race itself, but it definitely wasn't going to be easy for them with Red Bull having arguably just as quick a car as the team from Maranello.
The race was tight between the two teams at the front and heading into the last few laps of the race, the win still looked as though it could have gone either way. That was until both Red Bulls suffered mechanical issues right at the end of the race, meaning that it was Ferrari who came away with their first win and 1-2 for the team since 2019 when both Vettel and Leclerc shared the top two steps of the podium.
What was heartbreaking for Red Bull fans was elation for Mercedes fans who, having seen their team turn up last weekend with the third fastest car, saw their drivers gain 2 places, securing Hamilton 3rd on the podium in the process alongside the Ferrari boys in red.
Ferrari and Mercedes aren’t the only teams that will be happy though with how their weekend finished up. A return back to the midfield for Haas showed that their choice to sacrifice last year's car to focus on their 2022 car was a gamble worth doing and alongside that, Alfa Romeo will be pretty happy with the pace their car showed too. Great drives by Bottas and their new rookie driver Zhou will give them hope that they might be able to finish consistently in the points this year.
Alpine and Alpha Tauri also showed us that their cars have some good potential this year but unfortunately, it’s the teams of Williams, Aston Martin and McLaren that will really be scratching their heads wondering just how they’re going to catch up to the rest of the grid. Although all of the teams are expected to be bringing upgrades to their cars throughout the season, it looks as though it’ll be these three teams that will have the much harder task of trying to improve their cars faster than their competitors can do. It remains a possibility that it could just be that their cars are better suited for other types of tracks but this should all become apparent to us this weekend when we race at the “fastest street track” on the whole calendar, Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
What to expect in Saudi Arabia
As mentioned above, this weekend's race will take place at the Jeddah street circuit, otherwise called the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, which sits on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, along the Red Sea. Although only completed last season (about a week before the actual race took place), this track is only set to be on the calendar for one more year after this weekend’s race. With Saudi Arabia building a new “motorsport city” in Riyadh, set to be finished at the start of 2024, we may only get to see this intense and challenging track just a couple more times.
When we raced here last year, there wasn’t a single moment when something exciting or dramatic wasn’t happening. With intense qualifying laps, multiple restarts, FIA controversies and high-speed crashes, it was one of the most dramatic, action-packed races of the season…for good and bad reasons. With drivers reaching some of the highest speeds they’ll reach all year here and plenty of fast sweeping corners on the track too (there’s 27 of them in total, the most of any track on the calendar), all we can hope for is a race that’s just as thrilling as last year's, but minus all the controversies.
As the teams gear up for this weekend, presumably hoping for the same kind of race as we do, they’ll be just as interested in the city that they’re racing in as it’s residents will be in seeing Formula 1 this weekend. With Jeddah being the second biggest city in Saudi Arabia, there’s sure to be plenty for them to do but with this being a coastal city, they’re also sure to find a lot of restaurants selling freshly caught fish and seafood, something the city is well known for unlike many other parts of the country. A hugely popular dish that they’re still likely to see in Jeddah, even though it’s cooked with meat instead of fish, is the lightly spiced stew called Tharid.
A Bit Of Info On Tharid
Tharid (sometimes spelt Thareed) is a meat or vegetable-based stew but it's most commonly cooked with lamb more than anything else. This comforting stew is popular all across Saudi Arabia however the time in which it’s most popular is during Ramadan, when it will be slow cooked throughout the day and then eaten as part of the iftar meal after dusk.
With Ramadan starting next weekend, just one week after F1 races in Saudi Arabia, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people getting ready to prepare their own version of this dish for the upcoming holy month, so what better time to explore this dish than now?
Not only is this stew absolutely delicious, but it also has the added benefit that it uses quite a few of the same ingredients from the Kabsa we made last week. With it’s use of Baharat, cinnamon and cardamom pods, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this stew might actually taste somewhat similar to Kabsa, however the two are actually vastly different. Although the spices combine to give Tharid the slightest of kicks, the tomatoes, along with the slow cooking of the lamb come together to make a stew full of its own individual and comforting flavours.
Although lamb stews can be found in multiple countries around the world, each with their own variation of how to make it, Tharid is certainly one of the most unique ones I’ve come across and is certainly one that I can see myself cooking again and again for many years to come. For those of you that do cook Tharid for yourself, whether that be this weekend or some other time in the future, be sure to comment or get in touch to let me know how you get on with it and if you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy!
Recipe For Tharid
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15-30 minutes
Cook Time: 2 hours - 2 hours 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
Splash of Olive Oil
800g-900g of Lamb (diced)
1&1/2 Medium-Large White Onions
2 carrots
3 tomatoes (de-seeded)
5-6 baby potatoes
1Tbsp Tomato paste/puree
1Tbsp of Ghee (or unsalted butter)
3 cloves of garlic
375ml of water
Spice Mix
2tsp Baharat
3 cardamom pods
Half a cinnamon stick or 1 small whole one
1/4tsp Turmeric
1/2tsp Cumin
Pinch of nutmeg
1&1/2tsp of fresh ginger
Pinch of chilli flakes
2 bay leaves
1/2tsp of parsely
Instructions
1. Heat a splash of olive oil in either a wide frying pan or the same Dutch oven/large saucepan that you'll be cooking the rest of the stew in. Once hot, add the lamb and cook until brown and cooked through, before then setting to one side.
2. If you've cooked the lamb in your Dutch oven/large saucepan, add the ghee straight into the same pan on a medium heat. Once hot, add the onion and then after a couple minutes, add the garlic too and cook for a further 5-10 minutes or until the onion goes soft and translucent.
3. Once softened, add in the de-seeded tomatoes, spice mix (minus the cinnamon stick and bay leaves), tomato paste, salt, pepper and the water before then mixing together.
4. Once mixed, add the lamb in, as well as the cinnamon stick and bay leaves and then bring to a boil before reducing to a simmer. Lightly cover and let stew for 45 minutes.
5. After the 45 minutes, taste the stew and add more salt and pepper if needed before then adding in the carrot and potato. Give the stew a stir before covering again for a further 45-60 minutes or until the potatoes have gone soft. (Your stew should be reducing down quite a bit at this stage so if it still looks a bit watery, don't recover the pot and turn the temperature up a bit instead.)
6. Once your potatoes have cooked through, taste the stew one last time to see if any more salt or pepper is needed. Serve the stew and garnish with some parsley.
With all the excitement we're set to see this weekend, I hope you all find time to try and squeeze in this recipe amidst all the action. If you did enjoy making this recipe, please get in touch and let us know how you got on with making it or if you made any alterations to the recipe yourself. Make sure to also follow on twitter and instagram so that you'll see when our next post comes out. With our next race taking place in two weeks time in Australia, our next recipe is definitely going to be one worth checking out.
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