Lebanese Palau - my concoction

 Lebanese Palau

World cuisines are both interesting and challenging. The large platters of rice, chicken, and meat served for the annual Navroze festival are a personal favourite. Every year, I attempt to prepare a dish from a different cuisine. It's thrilling and exhilarating. This year, while reading about the Lebanese Hashweh, I decided to prepare a combination with Arabic Kabsa. The end result was delicious, and I've included my recipe below.

Serves 20 at a buffet table

 500 g/ 1.1 lb ground minced meat

3 1/2 cups rice in broth

1/2 cup zereshk

A bunch of fresh mint

125 g/ 4 oz salted butter

2 kg boneless chicken thigh for shawarma

For Jujeh chicken, 1 whole spatchcocked chicken marinated in the highlighted recipe.

Two red onions sliced and oven baked

Thin pita bread toasted with garlic butter for pita chips

Yogurt with cucumber and toum

The kheema—ground minced meat.

Cook the ground minced meat in a tsp each of oil, salt, Lebanese 7 Spice or garam masala, ginger, and garlic pastes. Add a cupful of fried onions and 2 tbsp of tomato paste. Cook for 45 minutes until it is done. Add a tsp of sumac powder and mix well. 

The rice

Cook the rice in homemade chicken broth. Once you can see the top of the rice, steam it well. Toss it together with the cooked kheema—ground mince. This will blend the flavours. Mix in the 1/2 cup of zereshk berries.

The chicken shawarma

Rub the 2 kg/ 4.4 lb of chicken for shawarma with a dry shawarma rub. Once it's cool, thinly slice it. To really get crispy edges, stir fry in butter on high heat.

1 whole spatchcocked chicken

In a jujeh kebab marinade, cook the spatchcocked chicken.

The onions

 

Toss the remaining marinade over two large red onions and cook on a cookie sheet until soft.

To assemble

Arrange the rice on a large platter and layer the shawarma on top. Place the entire spatchcocked chicken. Garnish with garlic pita chips, red onions, and fresh mint. On the side, serve with cucumber-infused yoghurt.  

Photo courtesy Niloufer Mavalvala

 

My published cookbooks are available for sale through myself and on Amazon.

The World of Parsi Cooking: Food Across Borders is a 3 award winning book. It has been self published in July 2019 and will be going into its second print in 2022. 

The Vegetarian Parsi, inspired by tradition is an award winning cookbook. It was published by Spenta Multimedia India and is available on Amazon India and through email order at thevegetarianparsi@gmail.com.

The Art of Parsi Cooking; reviving an ancient cuisine was published in 2016 by Austin Macauley and continues to be available through amazon book depot book depository and from the publishers.