JERUSALEM, Yotam Ottolenghi’s third cookbook, is a gift that keeps on giving. Just when I think I have cooked all I am going to cook from it, I discover another recipe to try. I confess, I had turned the page on this one, a layered chicken and rice casserole, but then I tasted it at a friend’s house (Thank you Nancy!) and once again marveled at Ottolenghi’s skill of turning simple ingredients into magical food.
Make no mistake, this is comfort food; but, unlike the baked chicken and rice dishes I ate growing up, flavored with a can of Campbell’s soup of one variety or another, this one is dressed up casual chic with caramelized onions, warm spices and tart barberries. (Ottelenghi is always throwing something into his recipes that make you have to reach for the Larousse gastronomique).
Barberries are tiny, dried, sweet and sour berries popular in pilafs in Iran. In France they are known as épine-vinette and I buy them from Izraël, a spice store over near saint Paul in Paris’s Le Marais district. However, if you can’t get them, they can be replaced with the same amount of currants, soaked in lemon juice.
Like so many of his recipes, this is one I will make time and time again. A perfect dish to serve for supper with friends, or a comforting meal for children who have spent a rainy Sunday inside studying.
This is Ottelenghi’s recipe with only a few changes.
Ingredients
Serves 4
-
- 1kg (2.2lbs) chicken thighs, with bone and skin or 1 whole chicken cut into quarters
- 40g (2 tbsp) sugar
- 25g (1 ounce) barberries (or currants)
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 medium onions, sliced
- 10 cardamom pods
- 1/3 tsp whole cloves (about 4)
- 2 long cinnamon sticks, broken in two
- 300g (1½ cups) basmati rice
- 550ml (2 1/3 cups) boiling water
- 5g (1 tbsp) parsley, chopped
- 5g (1 tbsp) dill, chopped
- 5g (1 tbsp) coriander, chopped
- 100g (½ cup) Greek yogurt, mixed with 2 tbsp of olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Put the sugar in a small saucepan along with the 40 ml (about ¼ cup) of water and heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; add the barberries and set aside to soak. If using currants, soak them in a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.
- Meanwhile, heat half the olive oil in a large sauté pan for which you have a lid; add the sliced onion and cook over medium heat for 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally, until the onion has turned a deep golden brown (I cover the pan with a lid set at an angle, this allows some of the moisture from the onions evaporates, but the rest falls back down in the pan keeping the onions moist so they don’t burn). Transfer the onions to a small bowl and wipe the pan clean.
- Place the chicken in a large mixing bowl and season with 1½ teaspoons of salt and black pepper. Add the remaining olive oil to the sauté pan and sear the chicken pieces starting skin side down. Sear for at least 10 minutes per side, this is important as it partially –cooks the chicken. Removed the seared chicken from the pan. Add the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon and cook one or two minutes, and then add the rice and the caramelized onion. Strain the barberries (or currents) and add them as well. Stir well to coat everything in oil, then return the seared chicken and mix with the rice.
- Pour the boiling water over the rice and chicken, cover the pan and cook on a very low heat for 30 minutes. Take the pan off the heat, remove the lid and quickly place a clean tea towel over the pan then return the lid to the pan. Leave the dish undisturbed for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the herbs and use a fork to stir them in and fluff up the rice. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Serve hot or warm, with yoghurt if you like.
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https://www.charlottepuckette.com/recipes/main-dish-meatpoultry/ottolenghis-chicken-with-caramelized-onions-and-cardamom-rice/
