Maqluba—Upside Down Rice
By: Zomppa
Published: Thursday, December 9, 2010 - 6:37am

Ingredients




1 yellow onion, diced
5 pieces of chicken, cleaned and cut
2 cups basmati rice
1 large eggplant
2 small tomatoes
1 large green bell pepper
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons salt
of nutmeg
1 teaspoon pepper
Vegetable oil

Preparation

1 Soak 2 cups of rice for at least 1 hour before you begin cooking. 2 In a medium sized pot heat 2 tsp of vegetable oil and add the diced onion. 3 After a minute, place the chicken pieces in the pot, and add 1 tsp of salt, pepper, turmeric and nutmeg. Add 1 ½ cups of water, cover, and let cook on medium heat about 20 minutes until chicken is cooked. 4 Peal and cut eggplant into 1 cm thick rounds. Place in colander and salt the eggplants for 15 minutes or until moisture is released. Rinse and pat eggplant dry. 5 Heat oven to 500°. Chop bell pepper and tomatoes into thick pieces and place together with eggplants on generously oiled baking sheet and broil and flip veggies until golden brown on both sides. 6 Boil 8 cups of water in a medium sized pot with 3 tsp of salt. Drain the soaked rice and add to boiling water. Cook on medium-high until water comes again to a boil, but the rice is not fully cooked. Drain rice a second time. 7 In a large pot heat 4 tsp of vegetable oil. Add chicken pieces and eggplant and dash on some pepper and cinnamon. Add 1/3 of the rice to the bottom layer. 8 In the second layer add half of the veggies and sprinkle on cinnamon. Cover with another 1/3 of the rice and pour half of the chicken broth over it. 9 Repeat layering for last time. Add remaining veggies, cinnamon, rice and broth. 10 Cover pot and let cook on low heat for about an hour. When the bottom is crispy and browned and the rice is plump and fragrant, the pot is ready to flip. 11 This is the hardest part—the flipping! Stand by with a large round platter. Carefully flip the pot onto the platter so that when you slowly remove the pot, the crispy bottom is left behind. 12 Garnish with browned almond slivers and pine nuts, as desired. 13 Serve with plain or mint yoghurt. 14 Optionally, use lamb instead of chicken, and include roasted cauliflower and zucchini.

About


What do with the rice at the bottom of the pot? Check out this easy, delicious Persian/Jordanian dish!  http://tinyurl.com/288hqjr