Emporer Rice With Baharat Chicken

Spices, Herbs, Spice Classes Cuisine: Persian. Cooking time: 1 hr. Serves 6.

Chicken Ingredients

½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp sweet paprika
2 tsp Baharat spice
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp fine Himalayan pink salt
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, squeezed
Lemon rind from juicing
2 boneless chicken thigh fillets
2 onions, sliced thinly
Olive oil

Rice Ingredients

4 cups BASMATI rice
2 Tbsp salt
3 pinch saffron threads (about 10-12 stamins)
Generous pinch of Sugar
2 Tbsp coconut sugar
1 large potato, sliced
4 Tbsp butter
¾ cup dried barberries, rinsed
2 Tbsp slithered almonds, toasted
2 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted
Fresh Parsley for garnishing

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Toast the almonds and the pine nuts and set aside.
Rinse and drain rice in a bowl. Add salt and cover with water, soaking for 1 hour.
Place the saffron and a generous pinch of sugar in a mortar and grind to a fine powder.
Tip contents into three quarters of a cup of hot water. Set aside.
Combine the spices, pepper and salt in a small bowl. Add the garlic, 200ml of hot water and 1 Tbsp of the saffron water. Add lemon juice. Stir well.
Place chicken in a deep baking tray. Scatter with the onion and pour over the spice and garlic mixture. Cut lemon rind into pieces and lay by chicken. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour
Drain the rice but don’t rinse, add to a pot or large saucepan and cover with water. Add a little oil to stop the grains sticking to each other. Boil the rice for 10 minutes or until al dente.
Drain in a colander or sieve.
Put the pot back on the stove and add 3-4 Tbsp of olive oil. Lay the sliced potato in the base of the pot. Top with the drained rice and cover with a pot lid. Cook on medium-high until the rice begins to steam (about 3 minutes), then turn the heat to low. At this stage wrap the pot lid in a tea towel so that the underside is covered and place back on the pot. Leave to steam for 45 minutes. By the end you should have perfect, fluffy, separated rice.
Separate the rice into 2 separate bowls. Cover to keep warm.
Heat the butter in a small frying pan. Tip half the melted butter into the saffron water and stir the mixture through the one of the warmed rice in the bowl.
With the other half of the melted butter in the pan, add the barberries. Sauté for a few minutes then add the coconut sugar. Stir. Add in the toasted slithered almonds and the pine nuts. Stir briefly then remove from the heat. Don’t let it caramelise!
Place a layer of white rice on a serving platter, followed by a sprinkling of barberries, nuts and then a layer of the saffron rice. Keep layering, mounding up into the shape of a cone.
Leave some barberries and nuts for the top.
Arrange the chicken around the platter then spoon over some of the cooking juices and the saffron rice on top of the mound. Add a final sprinkling of barberries and nuts. Add some parsley for garnishing.