PALESTINIAN & LEVANTINE RECIPES • ENGLISH / العربية
← All recipes
main
Chicken Maqluba
Chicken, fried vegetables and spiced rice layered in one pot and turned out upside down at the table. The name means "flipped", and the flip is the point.
Prep 40 min · Cook 50 min · Total 90 min · Difficulty: medium
Servings
6
Ingredients
For the chicken and stock
1 1/2 kg
chicken pieces, bone in
1
onion — halved
4
cardamom pods
2
bay leaves
1
cinnamon stick
1 tsp
salt
For the layers
1
aubergine — sliced into rounds
1
cauliflower — broken into florets
2
potatoes — sliced into rounds
oil, for frying — enough to shallow fry
3 cups
short or medium grain rice — rinsed until the water runs clear
2 tsp
seven spice (baharat)
1/2 tsp
ground turmeric
1/4 tsp
ground black pepper
To serve
3 tbsp
toasted pine nuts or almonds
plain yoghurt and chopped salad
Method
1
Cover the chicken with water, bring to a boil and skim the surface carefully. Add the onion, cardamom, bay, cinnamon and salt, then simmer for about 25 minutes. Lift the chicken out and keep the stock; the rice is going to cook in it, so it is doing most of the seasoning.
2
Fry the aubergine, cauliflower and potato separately until each is well coloured, and drain them on paper. Frying rather than roasting is what gives maqluba its flavour, so do not rush this or crowd the pan.
3
Layer a heavy pot from the bottom up: chicken first, then the fried vegetables, then the rinsed rice tossed with the spices. Do not stir it. The bottom layer becomes the top of the finished dish, so arrange it as you want it seen.
4
Pour in hot stock to about a knuckle above the rice, bring to a boil, then cover and cook on the lowest heat for 25 to 30 minutes until the liquid is gone.
5
Rest the pot off the heat for 10 minutes. Put the serving tray over it, hold both firmly, and turn it over in one movement. Leave the pot sitting for a minute before lifting it away.
6
Scatter the nuts over the top and serve with yoghurt and salad.
Notes
The rest before flipping matters more than confidence does. Turning it out straight from the heat is what makes it collapse.
Aubergine and cauliflower is the common Palestinian pairing, but the vegetables vary by household and by what is in season.
sufra daima
Palestinian & Levantine cooking, in English and Arabic.
Sufratkum ‘amira · May your table be full — what you say when the food goes down.