Serving up Jordanian culture in Australia

Passport & Plate - Mansaf Chicken

Jordan | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients

6x chicken drumsticks
500g kefir*
1x egg lightly beaten
1x sliced brown onion
½ cup pine nuts
½ cup slivered almonds
2x tablespoons ghee
1x teaspoon turmeric
1x teaspoon cardamom
1x teaspoon chilli flakes
4x tablespoons parsley
2x cups basmati rice
Water (approximately 2-3 litres)
Pita bread
Salt and pepper to taste

* Kefir is a fermented yogurt found at specialty grocers. Traditionally mansaf is made using jameed which is a salted, fermented and dried yogurt. Jameed is not readily available in Australia but a similar flavour can be achieved by using kefir and then adding additional salt to bring out the fermented yogurt flavour.

How to prepare this recipe

1. Brown the nuts in a frying pan over high heat. Once they are golden and aromatic take them off the heat and set them to one side.

2. Place chicken in large pot with salted water that just covers the meat. Add the onion, chilli flakes and half the ghee.

3. Cook the chicken over medium heat until almost done, about 20 minutes.

4. In a separate pot, bring eight cups of water to the boil with the rice, turmeric, cardamom, and remaining half of the ghee. Keep an eye on this, and once cooked to your liking, drain and set aside.

5. In another large saucepan, stir the kefir over medium heat until smooth.

6. Add the lightly beaten egg to the kefir and continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.

7. Add some of the stock from the chicken just to loosen the sauce and give a creamy texture.

8. Stirring constantly, heat the sauce until it almost comes to the boil and thickens slightly.

9. Add the cooked chicken pieces and onion to the kefir sauce. Turn the heat down to low and allow the chicken to finish cooking in the sauce.

10. Once the meat is falling off the bone taste the sauce and season appropriately with salt, pepper and paprika. If you haven’t tasted mansaf before, go slowly with the salt until you start to get a real zing from the kefir and then continue to season according to taste. The end result should be tart, sweet and fragrant.

11. Mound the rice on a large serving platter.

12. Arrange the chicken pieces on the rice and pour most of the kefir sauce over it.

13. Garnish with almonds, pine nuts, onions and parsley.

14. Add pita to the platter.

15. Serve immediately.


Serving suggestions
To make sure you enjoy this meal as much as possible, and feel as transported to the other side of the world as hoped for, one should also:•
- Sit cross-legged on the floor
- Eat with your hands
- Enjoy with a hot cup of sage tea made simply by brewing some black tea and adding lots of sugar to make it sweet along with some fresh sage leaves.

The story behind this recipe

My signature dish is a giant plate of culture. Literally.

Allow me to explain…

We’re in Jordan. Petra, to be exact. It’s everything a foreign adventure should be. The history is overwhelming. The language barrier is huge. The feet are aching. The sweat is dripping. The mouth is watering.

We crawl back to our homestay accommodation after a mind-blowing yet physically excruciating day of clambering through the ruins of an ancient civilization too old to comprehend. We’re covered from head to toe in red dust; proof of our day’s accomplishments. The picnic we enjoyed at lunch feels like it was days ago, not hours. And the smell I suddenly notice is nothing short of mesmerising.

We step inside our Bedouin-tent-inspired room and dive to the floor. Which is also our bed.

In walks our host, with a huge serving dish piled high with bright yellow turmeric rice, chicken atop the rice dripping with creamy sauce – the smell from before – dressed with almonds, pine nuts, onion, parsley and pita bread. Wow.

Turns out it’s a Jordanian staple; mansaf chicken.

It tastes just like it smells. It’s sort of sour, sweet, fragrant and meaty all at the same time. We eat with our hands, the meat is falling off the bone and the textures of the soft meat, fluffy rice, crunchy nuts, crisp onions and silky sauce are the perfect combination.

Jordanian food has something special…it has soul. And that soul is mighty tasty. Food with soul is worth searching the world to find…or at least worth attempting to re-create in your own home!

Sitting on the floor eating mansaf with my hands is the ‘furthest from home’ I’ve ever felt. Just like Jordan itself, the dish assaulted all of my senses at the same time – in a good way.

Mansaf holds a special place in my heart and I make it whenever I want to escape and feel like I am on the other side of the world. And given that the main ingredient is fermented yogurt, I think it’s fair to say that it really is a plate full of culture. Pun intended.