Bahrain - home cooking



When anticipating the next meal, from Bahrain, I expected to have the same problem as I had with the Bahamian meal. There are many pan-regional restauarnts in London (Caribbean, and in this case Middle Eastern) but finding individual national dishes wasn't going to be easy. The little bit of research I did online confirmed this. However, another complication was that the meal in the question this time - mahboos - is popular all over the Gulf region, but each country adds their own unique touch to it.

Therefore I thought the safest way to authentically recreate the meal the Bahraini way would be to, again, cook from home. In Bahrain, chicken mahboos is most prevalent, and I combined several Bahraini recipes to create this meal.

Most recipes worked from quartering a whole chicken. Not one to mess with whole animals, I opted to go for a mixture of chicken legs and boneless thighs. I started by mixing a combination of garam masala, tumeric, cumin, cardamom and salt together and rubbing it into the chicken pieces.

The next stage was to fry three chopped onions in oil until golden brown, then adding black pepper and some lime juice. Next, add the chicken pieces to the pan, sprinkle ground cinnamon, and baharat onto the contents of the pan, mix and turn well, cover and cook for three minutes.

As an aside, I was really surprised to find baharat in my local supermarket. It is a Middle Eastern mix of many different spices and is very common in the region.

Next, I added garlic, ginger and tomatoes to the pan, cooked for a few minutes more, added some more salt, water and covered the pan, cooking the contents for 45 minutes.

Five minutes before this time was up, I added chopped coriander leaves. Then, after removing the chicken pieces from the stock, I brushed them with oil, spinkled more cinnamon powder on them and grilled the chicken until golden brown.

Back to the pan of stock, I added the basmati rice and cooked until the stock was absorbed. Then the rice was sprinkled with rose water and lemon juice, and topped with pieces of butter. This was then cooked on a low heat for 10 more minutes.

Then it was time to serve. After fluffing up the rice it was spooned onto a plate, and the chicken pieces placed on top.

I was actually really pleased how this turned out. The chicken was perfect - very flavoursome and very very succulent. The grilling added extra flavour. But the part I enjoyed most was the rice. It was absolutely awesome. The range and strength of flavours had to be tasted to be believed. The difference that the rose water made to the overall taste was incredible.

It turns out I had cooked way too much rice. Which was perfect, as we both took a full box of the stuff to work for lunch the next day. And it was just as good then as it was the day before.

This was one large, wholesome, and hugely enjoyable meal.