Sayyadiah
- Vegetable oil
- 4 or 5 large onions, sliced
- Salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin or allspice
- 2 pounds skinned fish fillets
- Juice of 1/21 lemon
- 1 pound long-grain rice, washed
- In a large saucepan, fry the onions in 2 or 3 tablespoons oil over very low heat, with the lid on, until soft and transparent but still white, stirring occasionally.
- Let them get dark brown if you want a brown sayyadiah.
- Add about 5 cups water and simmer until the onions have nearly melted.
- You can leave the onions as they are, or blend them to a pulp with some of the liquid.
- Return them to the pan, and season with salt and cumin or allspice.
- Add the fish and simmer for about 48 minutes, until cooked but still firm.
- Skim off the scum as it rises to the surface.
- Remove the fish and keep hot.
- Retain about 4 cups of the onion stock to cook the rice in.
- Pour the remaining stock into another pan and add lemon juice to taste, to make a sauce.
- Throw the washed and drained rice into the first portion of boiling stock.
- Let it boil vigorously for a minute, then reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer gently, undisturbed, until the rice is tender, about 1520 minutes.
- Just before serving, reheat the fish in the sauce.
- Serve the rice heaped in a mound on a large serving dish.
- Arrange the pieces of fish over or around it, and pour the hot, lemony sauce over the whole dish.
- For an elegant presentation, press the fish, then the rice over it, into an oiled mold.
- Heat through in the oven before turning out carefully.
- Garnish with 1/21 cup lightly fried pine nuts and/or split blanched almonds.
- Here is an Egyptian version.
- Color and soften the onions, then fry the fish briefly with the onions so that it is still uncooked inside.
- Make a stock with the bones, head, and trimmings of the fish, simmered with 1 stalk celery, 1 onion, and 1 carrot.
- Strain through a fine sieve.
- Cook the rice as above, in 1 1/2 times its own volume of stock.
- Mix the cooked rice with the fish and onions in a baking dish.
- Garnish with lightly fried pine nuts and moisten with a little of the stock, considerably reduced.
- Bake in a preheated 300F oven for 1520 minutes.
vegetable oil, onions, salt, ground cumin, lemon, longgrain rice
Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/sayyadiah-373350 (may not work)