Turkish Magluba
Magluba is said to be an old Middle Eastern dish. Magluba literally means,"upside down". This recipe is an upside down rice dish cooked with either lamb or chicken. It is a one dish meal, with eggplants, rice and meat/chicken all in one. It is flavored with allspice, which blends the tastes very well together and is garnished with almonds.
Ingredients:
- 1 whole chicken
- 3-5 glasses of chicken broth
- 4-5 eggplants
- 2-3 cups of rice
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon/allspice
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1-2 tablespoons of currants
- 75 gr butter
- shortening for frying the eggplants
- skinned roasted almonds
How to:
Soak the rice, meanwhile peel the eggplants and slice them vertically, about half cm thick.(see photo gallery)
Place them in a deep bowl and salt them generously. Keep them for half an hour in the bowl until they sweat. Half an hour later, wash the eggplants and dry them thoroughly. Heat the shortening in a pan and fry the eggplants. Place them on a kitchen towel.
Drain and wash the rice. Boil the chicken in a deep pot with plenty of water. To add more flavour, peppercorns, carrots and onion can be added to the boiling water. When the chicken is boiled, drain it, remove the bones and cut the meat into small pieces.
In a flat-bottomed pot, place the chicken meat first as the first layer, then the fried eggplants arranging the eggplants to cover the base and all the sides, as the petals of a flower starting in the middle with enough height to fold over after adding the rice. Pour the chicken broth over the eggplants, adding butter, currants, cinnamon and a pinch of salt and pepper. Finally put the the drained rice. Stir carefully. Press lightly with your hand, cover and cook..
When cooking pilav, my rice and water ratio is 1 to 1,5 (1 cup of rice - 1,5 cups of water) but for this recipe I add half a cup of water/broth more. Once the rice has absorbed the broth, decrease the temperature of the cooker and let it simmer until the rice is done.
Before serving, carefully touch the sides and top of the pot with a wooden spoon. Turn it upside down into a platter and garnish with roasted almonds.
Enjoy!