Jaj bel Lissan al Assfour

  1. In a pan large enough to contain the chicken, fry the onion in the oil until soft.
  2. Put in the chicken, and pour in 4 1/2 cups of water (it will not cover the chicken entirely).
  3. Add garlic, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger if you like, salt, and pepper.
  4. Simmer for 11 1/2 hours with the lid on, until the chicken is so tender the meat falls off the bone, turning the chicken over once halfway through.
  5. Take out the chicken, and when it is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones.
  6. Bring the sauce to the boil, add the lemon juice, and throw in the pasta.
  7. Cook for 810 minutes, or until tender, adding boiling waterabout 1 cupif necessary, and more salt and pepper.
  8. Stir in the butter and put the chicken pieces back into the pan, over the pasta.
  9. Heat through before serving.
  10. The pasta becomes soft rather than al dente.
  11. Dry vermicelli (shaghria in Arabic), crushed into 1-inch pieces with your hands, can be used instead of the orzo.
  12. They will need less cooking timeabout 56 minutes.
  13. For the apricot sauce to accompany, simmer 1/2 pound tart, unsweetened dried apricots in water until soft.
  14. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon if you prefer a sharper taste.
  15. When the apricots are soft, crush them with a fork and continue to simmer until reduced to a soft puree, or puree to a cream with the liquid in a food processor.
  16. Serve hot or cold in a separate bowl.
  17. In Morocco, they boil a chicken, lift it out of the broth, and cut it up, then cook broken vermicelli in the broth.
  18. They serve the chicken covered and concealed by the vermicelli and garnished with sprinklings of ground cinnamon in a pattern of lines.

onion, sunflower oil, chicken, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, ground ginger, salt, lemon, orzo, butter

Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/jaj-bel-lissan-al-assfour-373379 (may not work)

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