Opinion – Recipes from Marcão: Rice with chicken and spices is a typical dish from Qatar and Saudi Arabia

Today we are going to talk about the food of the host of the Cup, Qatar.

The most traditional dish in Qatar is called machbus, sometimes spelled “makbus” or “machboos”. It’s a big pot of rice with chicken, something remotely similar to our chicken.

Qataris share a taste for the machbus with other nations on the Arabian Peninsula such as Bahrain, Oman and of course Saudi Arabia. If you look at the map, you will see that Qatar is a very small country (it has about half the area of ​​Sergipe). It is surrounded on one side by the sea; on the other, by the Saudis.

In Saudi Arabia, chicken rice also has the status of a national dish, but there it is better known by the name kabsa, with few variations on the recipe – which can also be made with lamb, goat, seafood and even camel.

In the machbus, everything is cooked in the same pot: rice, chicken and spices. The rice, in the original recipe, must be of the basmati variety, but the national agulhinha is enough for the cost.

The machbus spice mix has turmeric (also called turmeric) as the most striking ingredient in aroma and color. It also takes nutmeg, cumin, coriander, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and paprika, in proportions that can vary according to the customer’s taste.

I, for example, took the cloves and cinnamon very lightly, as I’m not a big fan.

A hard-to-find — if not impossible — component is loomi, or black lemon, a lemon dehydrated whole until very hard. The closest you can find here are the dried lemon slices, used in cocktail making.

The number of chicken legs in the recipe didn’t come out of my head at random: the trays that come from the refrigerators usually contain five thighs, but you can use more or less. I just don’t recommend using breast meat, too dry for this dish.

In Arab countries, machbus/kabsa is served at the center of the table in the pan itself, or on a communal plate, and people eat it with their hands. It’s ok if you prefer to use cutlery.

Chicken Machbus

Yield: 2 to 3 servings

Difficulty: medium

INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon of ground coriander seed.

1 tablespoon of cumin powder.

1 tablespoon sweet paprika.

2 tablespoons of turmeric.

½ teaspoon of grated nutmeg.

Salt to taste.

5 chicken thighs (or two thighs with drumsticks)

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.

1 large onion, sliced.

2 garlic cloves.

1 bay leaf.

3 cardamom pods.

2 slices of dehydrated lemon.

1 cinnamon stick.

1 carnation.

1 cup (200 g) of basmati rice or rice.

Fresh coriander to taste.

To serve: Fried onions, raisins and almond slivers.

PREPARATION

1. Prepare the spice mix with the ground coriander, cumin, paprika, nutmeg and turmeric. Season the chicken with a little of this mixture and salt to taste.

2. Heat the oil over low heat, in a pan that accommodates all the rice. Brown the chicken pieces. Reserve. Heat the oven to 200°C.

3. In the same pan, sauté the onion. When it softens, add the garlic, bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves and dehydrated lemon. Saute until the onion starts to brown.

4. Add about 750 ml of water. When it boils, add half of the chicken (if using only the thighs, add two or three and reserve the rest for roasting).

5. When the chicken is tender enough to remove the meat, debone the thighs from the broth. Discard the bones and return the minced meat to the pan.

6. Bake the reserved thighs for about half an hour.

7. Meanwhile, remove the lemons, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves (or whatever you can catch) from the broth. discard. Add rice and coriander leaves. Cook over low heat, uncovered, until dry. Add more water if necessary.

8. Serve the rice with the roasted thighs, raisins, fried onions and slivered almonds.