Chicken Kabuli Pulao (Afghanistan)

Afghanistan's national dish. My family likes this version very much. Modified from Recipe#59168.
- Ready In:
- 2hrs
- Serves:
- Units:
5
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ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken, cut up
- 1 large onion, sliced
- sea salt, to taste
- 1 1⁄2 pints hot water
- 1⁄4 lb white basmati rice
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1⁄2 tablespoon ground cardamom
- 1⁄2 tablespoon ground cumin
- fresh ground black pepper, to taste
- healthy pinch saffron, soaked in 1 tbs broth
- 1 large carrot, cut into match sticks
- 1⁄4 cup dark raisin
- 1⁄8 cup chopped pistachios (optional, toasted in a dry frying pan)
- 1⁄4 cup blanched slivered almond (optional, toasted in a dry frying pan)
directions
- Place chicken pieces, onions and hot water in a large pot.
- Cover and simmer for about 1 hour.
- Add salt to taste.
- Remove chicken, reserving stock & discard cooked onions.
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Heat 2 tbs of the butter over medium high heat and fry chicken pieces containing bones, salting as needed.
- Boil a large amount of water with sea salt and cook the rice in it for exactly 8 minutes. Set aside in a pot until ready to assemble.
-
Make stock sauce:
- Brown onions in butter and remove from heat.
- Add cardamom cumin, freshly ground black pepper & saffron liquid and mash with onion to form a paste.
- Add about 1/2 pt of the chicken stock; simmer for 5 minutes and taste for seasoning.
- Combine cooked rice, stock sauce as needed (I don't find it became a sauce so I added the onion paste with some broth as needed to finish cooking the rice) and chicken; place in a buttered casserole. Cover.
- Fry carrot matchsticks in 1/2 tbs butter and add dark raisins to them at the very end.
- Sprinkle partially cooked carrot matchsticks and raisins on top of chicken and rice and cover tightly with aluminum foil or cover.
- Place in oven for 35 minutes.
- Chopped toasted pistachios or slivered almonds may be added over the dish just before serving if so wished.
- There most probably will be left over stock that is very good even as a soup on it's own and probably served that way in an Afghani household.
- Enjoy!
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I substituted turmeric for cardamom and saffron. Also, I used 2 chicken breasts with 1/4 cup rice and used the onion from boiling the chicken for the spice paste. I didn't use a pressure cooker so I just boiled the chicken + onion until they looked done and combined all the ingredients in one pot before putting them in a tray to bake.Reply
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I made this for my book club lunch group when we met to discuss "And the Mountain Echoed". It was a hit! Absolutely delicious and so pretty on the table. I used all boneless chicken thighs and it was perfect that way. Also, as in other recipes I've seen for this dish online, I used a pressure cooker to cut the time way down when you cook the onions and chicken at the beginning-15 minutes instead of an hour.1Reply
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