No. 16 - Bahrain and the Night of the Chicken Machboos!

Another home-house rendition of Culinisation. This time Bahrain brought together my family and the so-called WAG’s, who made the journey to Sligo last weekend for Buckfest 2011. On the night of the Chicken Machboos, the wine was certainly flowing. There was wine, emergency wine and then, emergency wine and beer for the emergency wine. Somewhere into the emergency wine for the emergency wine, as we sat huddled under blankets outside my house, we spotted a UFO (an unidentified fixed object). It was down by the water and it glowed with a grey/whitish light that suddenly went out. After some squeals and hand grasping, we noticed that the silhouette could still be seen, jutting up into the horizon. It’s difficult to say how much time passed before we plucked up the courage to, armed with our t-light lanterns, take a closer look.

I managed, against the girl’s better judgment, to wade through the sand, sludge and stones to discover what was, of course, a tree. This still doesn’t explain the light though. Da troot is still out there.

Chicken Machboos

Chicken Machboos (chicken and rice) has all the ingredients of a curry (every spice under the sun and some), yet its flavors are far more subtle. You can taste all of the spices because there is little or no heat to overpower them. I shouldn’t even call it a curry of course. If it’s a curry that you want, this is not it. If you crave fire, extinguished with an ice-cold beer, wait couple of days until Bangladesh. If you are sick of ordering curry’s that make you sweat buckets, eyes water and you can’t understand why anyone would ever endure such a burning pain for every mouthful, go with the Machboos.

Machboos is really simple to make and is essentially a heatless curry that has rice cooked in it, kind of like a biryani. Like with all of these eastern countries, you need a stocked spice rack, but if you don’t already have one, I would recommend going out and buy one of everything. You may think, what is the point in buying a certain spice when a recipe only requires a tiny amount? Trust me, if you buy them, you’ll use them for everything. Another perk is you’ll be able to make a variety of dishes in the future without having to buy many ingredients. All I needed to buy for this was chicken and some coriander. Not bad. You’ve got to love a one pot wonder too.

Another ingredient this recipe requires is buharat spice mix, which is unique to Bahrain. Turns out I went through the mix, and the ingredients in a buharat spice mix are spice for spice the exact same as your good old curry powder. This is one spice I wouldn’t bother buying especially for this dish.

Serves 5

5 chicken legs, cut into drumsticks and thighs

3 onions, finely chopped

enough curry powder to marinade the chicken

1 chilli, deseeded and chopped

a chunk of ginger, chopped

1 tsp. cumin

½ tsp. cinnamon

2 cardamon pods, whole

1 ½ tsp. turmeric

2 ½  cups of long grain rice

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

salt

5 cups of water or chicken stock. (I just threw in a stock cube)

juice of ½ lemon

oil for frying

lemon wedges to serve

coriander leaves to serve

In a large bowl, cover the chicken pieces with curry powder. Fry the chicken in a deep saucepan until browned on all sides and set aside. Fry the onion, ginger and chili in the remaining oil with all of the additional spices for a couple of minutes. Return the chicken to the pan with a tin of chopped tomatoes and a cup of the chicken stock or water. Simmer for 45 minutes over a low heat until the chicken is cooked.

Add the rice and remaining chicken stock or water to the pan and simmer until the rice is cooked. Stir in the juice of half a lemon. Serve with coriander, lemon wedges and chutney. Yum.

No. 14 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azerbaijan!

Bidding farewell and good riddance to the A’s we finish up running scared from Azerbaijan.*

This meal was relatively uneventful and passed without any particularly mentionable anecdotes. Apart from maybe Ronan, my most helpful helper turning up just in time to help with the tasting of these little unpronounceable yarpag dolmasy’s. Use of vine leaves in this recipe, means yet another opened jar in the back of the fridge that I won’t ever use again but can’t bear to throw out. There is a chance I would finish them off if I didn’t have so many other unusual ingredients to buy and waste half of. So ya, that’s about as exciting as it gets I’m afraid.

*running scared was the winning Eurovision song this year by the way, in case my brilliant wit was undeterred by anyone. It also ties in with running scared from Azkaban - I think I'm on a role here. 

Yarpag dolmasy’s

I halved the (altered) recipe to serve two (and a half) people. You could probably add more rice if you wanted to bulk it up a bit - they were pleasantly and surprisingly meaty. Halved, tinned chickpeas are an additional option. Opening a can of chickpeas for a mere tablespoon or so didn’t seem worth it to me, but if you already have them open in the back of the fridge, why not? The vine leaves were jarred in brine and had a slightly pickled taste before they were rinsed. Afterwards they had the tang of black olives.

Yarpag dolmasy’s are tasty little mouthfuls and they really grow on you, different but in a good way – I think maybe it’s the cinnamon. Wrapping the meat in the vine leaf parcel and lining them in neat concentric circles in a saucepan is highly satisfying, at least for me anyway. They’re cooked for an hour and a half and then – loaded with garlicky yogurt, they’re gone in a mouthful.

1 bundle of vine leaves, rinsed and separated in cold water

250g of minced beef

1 small red onion, chopped finely

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ cinnamon

a handful of chopped parsley

2 tbsp of rice, rinsed in cold water

40g of butter, room temperature

salt and pepper

Garlic Yoghurt

5 heaped tbsp of greek yogurt

½ clove of garlic, minced

salt

Mix all of the ingredients except the vine leaves in a bowl with your hands to ensure everything is evenly distributed. Lay out the vine leaves on a work surface and place a dollop meat mixture in the centre. Fold the leave over and over again, to create a little round parcel (the circular shape is unique to Azerbaijan). Line a saucepan with the parcels and layer them up on top of one another. Place a plate in the pan with a heavy weight on top, this stops the parcels from unraveling, Cover with water up until the plate and simmer for an hour and a half.

Remove with a slotted spoon and serve with greek yogurt mixed with half a clove of minced garlic and some salt. Add a green salad, crusty bread and a punnet of ripe cherry tomatoes and you’re sorted.