Chicken Machboos Recipe -- Bahraini Chicken and Rice

Machboos is a dish of rice and meat which is very popular across the Middle East. If you're looking for a different recipe for Chicken, then try this fabulous Machboos recipe provided by my friend Abdoo from Bahrain.

Recipe:
1 Whole Chicken
2 Large Onions diced
1 Tomato cut into chunks
10 Cardamom pods (we cut 5 into half for added flavor)
2 Sticks of Cinnamon
2 Bay leaves
3 tsp Turmeric
8 Whole Cloves
1 Dried Lime
2 Red Chilli Peppers
1 tsp Saffron
Salt & Black Pepper to taste
2 Cups Basmati Rice (follow directions on package)
4 1/2 Cups Water (or enough water to cook rice)
1/2 Cup Golden Raisins
1/2 Cup Roasted Pine Nuts
3-4 Tbsp Ghee or Veg Oil

1) Heat the Ghee over High heat. Add chicken to ghee. Brown all sides well. Remove chicken after browning and turn heat down to medium.

2) Add onions to pot and cook onions until transparent, then add cut up tomato and warm through.

3) Add chicken back to the pot with the onion mixure. Also add the dried lime, red chilli, salt, black pepper, and rest of the spices.

4) Add water to the pot until it covers chicken and simmer until chicken is cooked.

5) After chicken is cooked, add the rice and raise heat to med-high uncovered. Cook rice until most of the water is absorbed by the rice.

6) Add the saffron to the rice, turn heat to simmer, cover pot and let simmer until rice is done.

7) In a seperate pan, toast the pine nuts. When pine nuts are almost toasted, add golden raisins to plump them up over the heat, but do not burn the nuts or raisins.

8) Plate the Machboos and top with roasted pine nuts and golden raisins.

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Music:
Niles Blues by Kevin MacLeod

"Nile's Blues" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/