Maghribiyya with Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, cut, cleaned and washed
• 1.5 kg small pearl onions (or adjust amount as desired)
• 1 kg chickpeas, soaked overnight and par-cooked
• 4 tbsp caraway seeds
• Seasonings for boiling the chicken (bay leaf, salt, etc.)
• Maghribiyya pasta
• Ghee (clarified butter)
• Cinnamon
• For more of Esra's dishes see: Zucchini with yogurt (Kousa Ablama)

Method

1. Fry the pieces of chicken in ghee until the liquids evaporate, then add water and seasonings and simmer the chicken until it is cooked.
2. Peel the onions while leaving the root and tip intact so the bulbs remain whole.
3. In a pot, fry the onions in ghee, then add the half-cooked chickpeas, caraway and salt and stir.
4. Add the chicken cooking broth along with the whole or deboned chicken pieces, and let the pot simmer on low heat.
5. In another pot, briefly boil the Maghribiyya grains, then drain them and put them in an aluminum colander; place the colander over the pot with the chicken, chickpeas and onions — this process is called 'tehbiel' for the Maghribiyya, where the grains finish cooking from the steam rising from the chicken broth and take on the flavor of caraway.
6. Leave the Maghribiyya in the colander to 'tehbiel' over the pot for about a quarter of an hour, then add ghee and a sprinkle of cinnamon over the grains, toss and remove them from the pot.
7. Place the Maghribiyya grains alone on a serving platter; when the chickpeas and onions are fully cooked, pour the chicken with the broth, chickpeas and onions into a separate serving dish.
8. When serving Maghribiyya with chicken, transfer portions from the two serving dishes onto the dinner plate. Some like to place the grains on top of the chicken and broth in the pot and serve the Maghribiyya with chicken that way.
9. Esraa Salem Samak
10. For more of Esraa's delicious dishes, here is this link: How to make stuffed zucchini with yogurt