As much as we love to bring you classic recipes or our take on take-out favorites, it’s always great to take a flavor vacation and try something new, or re-experience an old favorite. This week we’re taking the opportunity to make Yemeni Chicken Mandi, the perfect recipe for lovers of tender chicken and rice, seasoned with a flavorful blend of spices and just in time to serve for friends and family during Ramadan. So whether you’re brand new to Middle Eastern cooking, or a seasoned professional (pun intended), this is perfect for you.
This is a recipe that takes some time to get right, but when you do, it’s absolutely worth it, the chicken is tender and pairs perfectly with the seasoned rice. That being said, this recipe requires some time investment on your part to get right, and you’ll be using a couple different pots and pans in the preparation of all the ingredients. Otherwise, most of the time spent on this recipe comes down to letting the chicken steam, cooking the rice, and letting the chicken finish cooking in the oven towards the end, nothing too demanding, so don’t let that intimidate you if this is your first time making a chicken mandi.
The spice blend you’ll use for the marinade is a simple mix of aromatics and seasonings like cloves, coriander, and black pepper corns, and these come together to impart a flavor that’s a little savory, and a little earthy, to the chicken that gives it a great complex flavor, without being too overpowering. And the rice will cook in a broth blend of this after the chicken has steamed later, so the whole dish gets to enjoy a little bit of that blend of flavors as well.
Speaking of the rice, it comes with a very tasty mix of toasted almonds and raisins that offer a nice blend of savory and sweet, along with some much-appreciated texture in the final product. This rice is really a mix of all the different flavors of this dish all coming together to make something greater than the sum of its parts, so take the time to get the rice right. After the chicken has steamed a while in the pot, the remaining liquid will be pure, concentrated flavor from this process that, when combined with some Halal chicken broth, is perfect for boiling the rice in and imparting all that savory, chicken goodness.
This is all happening towards the end of the cooking, so while the rice finishes cooking, it’s the perfect time to let the chicken finish cooking through in the oven. This chicken spends almost an hour steaming in the pot, so by the time it’s going to the oven it’s already deliciously tender and just needs to finish cooking through before you enjoy it. Around the time it comes out of the oven, the rice should be nearly done and when it is, mix in the almonds and raisins from earlier and you’re all set to enjoy!
