More home cooking this Sunday. On the menu today, a traditional dish from Bahrain, Chicken Machboos (or sometimes written as machbous). Effectively, that globally recognised combination of chicken and rice
I like one pot cooking, and that's what we have with chicken machboos. It took some time to prepare, starting with the trawl round Wimbledon supermarkets for cardamom pods and rose water. Eventually, I ended up at the fabulous Spiceways Supermarket on the Kingston Road, opposite South Wimbledon tube. I love that shop, you can find every type of spice/vegetable/paste imaginable and it seems to be open 24 hours a day. It's proving to be essential for the A to Z eating tour.
A key ingredient in the machboos is a complex mix of spices called Baharat. I had to make this from scratch, and now have enough to make this dish for about 50 people. Maybe I should have a Bahraini themed party sometime soon?
The actual cooking isn't difficult, but takes a while for all the flavours to permeate the chicken. I swapped in fresh limes for the dried limes mentioned in the recipe and that didn't seem to detract from the taste.
Very happy with the outcome and this is certainly one I'll be adding to my recipe book. Besides, I'll have to make it again to use up all that Baharat spice mix!
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