Lebanese Cinnamon Chicken with Rice and Nuts… featuring some of my new handmade dishes!

This is a simple but very flavourful recipe! By using the cooking liquid from the chicken, the cinnamon stick permeates throughout the whole dish. With some deeply toasted pine nuts and almonds and a squeeze of lemon, this will soon become one your go-to dishes in your cooking repertoire!

Let’s get started:

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken (I like thighs or legs)
1 cinnamon stick
3 bay leaves
1 whole onion
salt, to taste

1 large onion
1 cup rice, basmati preferably
1.5-2 cups of reserved chicken cooking broth, depending on rice cooking instructions(look at bag)

pine nuts
blanched almonds

1) Rinse your chicken with a bit of cold water and vinegar. Add pieces into a pot.  Add cinnamon stick, bay leaves, one roughly chopped onion and salt. Put on medium low heat and cook for 15-20 minutes. You don’t want to boil it, you want to gently bring the water to heat to poach the chicken, not a rolling boil.

2) Once chicken is cooked through(check near the bones to see if still pink), remove and set the cooking liquid aside. Let chicken cool for shredding later.

3) Cook the rice in the reserved chicken liquid. Test the broth for seasoning, add more salt if it’s not very flavourful. For one cup of rice, use 1.5 cups to 2 cups of broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat, steam covered until cooked (15 minutes for white rice, 40 minutes for brown rice).

4) While the rice is cooking, caramelize a large onion that has been thinly sliced, in some olive oil.

5) Dry roast some pine nuts in a pan until golden brown, around 5 minutes. In the same pan, dry roast some blanched almonds until dark brown.

6) Shred chicken meat off the bones. Once rice is cooked, top with the cooked chicken and the caramelized onions and sprinkle with the nuts. Serve with a slice of lemon.

7) Enjoy and Bon appetit! Sahtein!

Side note:

I also served this with a simple salad of pea shoots, Persian cucumbers, sesame seeds and a mustard vinaigrette. Of course it was an excuse to use my new ramen bowl I made in pottery class.

Cheers,

TSP