Chicken Mandi (Yemeni chicken & yellow rice)
This Easy Chicken Mandi is a family staple all through the Arab world & will soon become your family's favourite dinner. Chicken legs baked in an aromatic spice blend until fall-apart tender, best served with a scoop of fragrant smokey rice. Best yet, this is an easy Chicken Mandi recipe. A fail-proof & delicious dinner that's always satisfying & perfect for a family gathering or any time you want to spoil your loved ones!
Ingredients
- 8 pieces Chicken drumsticks, thighs, etc.
- 2 medium onions finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon ghee
- 1 ½ cup Sella Basmati rice wash and presoaked 30 minutes.
- 6 garlic cloves peeled, leave whole
- 2 ½ teaspoon sea salt please don't use table salt!
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1 cup Mixed Nuts pinenuts, almond silvers, & cashews
- 1 teaspoon ghee
Hawaij Spice mixture:
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 Indian bay leaves ground into powder* see notes
Instructions
- Prep Chicken: wash your chicken by giving it a little scrub with fresh lemon,⏤skip the lemon if you don't have it on hand.
- Let's spice it up: Rub 1-2 teaspoons of the Hawaij spice and a pinch of salt onto each piece of chicken. Once all of the chicken is coated with spice, add a drizzle of olive oil, and rub everything together. Allow the chicken to marinate well your oven is heating up.
- Start your oven: Pre-heat your oven to 400°. Once heated transfer, the chicken to a baking pan and cover with tin-foil⏤bake for 40 minutes. You should have a lot of broth on the bottom of the pan, which you're going to use to flavour the rice. After 20 minutes of cooking the chicken, start the rice.
- After 45 minutes of cooking the chicken, start the rice: Heat a large pot, add ghee & onions. Sautee. Occasionally stir the onions until they're totally cooked through but not brown, add 2 teaspoons of the Hawaij spice, then continue cooking until the spices start to stick to the bottom of the pot, about 90 seconds.
- Add the rice: Stir, the rice into the onion & spices, until the rice is really well coated⏤the spice mixture should be sticking to each individual grain of rice.
- After 5 minutes of the rice cooking: Remove the chicken from the oven. Open the tin foil, remove the chicken and pour all the rice and the whole garlic cloves into the chicken drippings, then add approximately 2 ½ cups of hot water and ½ teaspoon more salt. (taste the saltiness of the water at this point and decide if more salt is needed-the water should be slightly salty to the taste but NOT as salty as the sea). Give it one a good stir! Place the cooked chicken back into the baking pan with the rice and continue cooking covered for 20 minutes.
- Time for some magic! You'll need a small piece of charcoal and a small metal dish (see notes) for this part of the recipe. Place the chicken in the pot with the rice, add the small metal dish in the centre of the rice. Pour 1 teaspoon of oil into a mini heat-proof bowl. Heat the charcoal on the element of the stove until the coal is red. Add the hot charcoal into the mini bowl with oil. You're going to see a lot of smoke! Quickly, cover the pot with its lid and wrap-around with a kitchen towel to stop any smoke from leaving the pot. Wait 5-8 minutes for the smoke to disappear in the rice. Open the lid, remove the chicken, and stir the smoky flavour.
- In the meantime: Fry your nuts in a 1 teaspoon ghee until they're just about to turn golden brown.
- Set the table! Place the rice on a serving platter, top with the chicken and then the nuts and raisins.
Notes
Time-saving hacks:
Marinate the chicken the night before. You can also freeze the chicken in the spice mixture. To wash your rice or not to wash rice, that is the question, I'll let up to you. I personally always wash my rice, but others don't. So I leave that step up to you. I don't usually soak my rice. If you choose to soak your rice, you'll need to increase the prep time.- I use Instant Charcoal Quality Hookah for the smoking step, you also can use a broken piece of charcoal if that's what you have available.
- If you do not have a metal dish, then you can use a foiled-up piece of tin foil. Fold the tin foil into a square about 3 times so the square fits into the palm of your hand. curl the corners into a bowl-like shape so the oil won't pour out and the coal will fit perfectly.