As more people are becoming aware of the pleasures of Mediterranean cooking, I thought it would be fun to go straight to the source. I asked my friend, Nicole Chedid, the wife of the Ambassador of Lebanon, for some classic Lebanese recipes. With typically warm Lebanese hospitality she invited me for lunch and served two of her favorites. You may know Baba Ghanouj, the classic roasted eggplant dish, fragrant with garlic, spices, and olive oil, and served as a first course with pita bread – it is a gentler, smokier version of hummus. And I’m excited to share her classic Lebanese recipe for Stuffed Rice with Chicken, a rich melding of spices, meats and nuts that is memorably delicious.
Nicole and I watched as the Embassy’s longtime chef, Raghida Amer, peeled the skin off of the baked eggplant, leaving the pulp with a lovely, smoky taste, before turning to the chicken and rice. On her stove an enormous pot bubbled with two of the largest whole chickens I’ve ever seen, simmering in a spicy broth. While the chickens cooked, Raghida made the stuffed rice with onion, ground beef, allspice, cinnamon, salt, and pepper, and she toasted whole almonds and pine nuts in a frying pan. You would recognize the scene: an accomplished chef doing eight things at once with ease and competence, in a fragrant, well-ordered kitchen.
Amb. Antoine Chedid and his wife Nicole have served in Washington for a number of years, welcoming guests from all over Washington and the US, as well as hosting Lebanese government officials and prominent Lebanese-Americans in their home with great charm and hospitality – and people always talk about how much they love the food there. My lunch with Nicole was no different. She served the baba ghanouj with pita bread and a fattoosh salad – a savory salad of herbs, tomatoes, baked pita toast with sumac, radishes and assorted crunchy vegetables. The chicken and rice followed, on an enormous silver platter piled high with steaming white meatand roasted nuts. The cardamom, allspice, and bay scented the room, and nobody refused seconds. If you aren’t familiar with Lebanese food, these two recipes are a great start, and if you are familiar with Lebanese food, I can promised you’ll appreciate these classics.
Serves: 8
Prep time: 35 minutes
Ingredients
- 4 large eggplant
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 tablespoons tahini sesame paste
- ½ cup plus 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- olive oil for garnish
- pomegranate seeds (if in season) and parsley or mint for garnish
Directions
- Prick eggplants with a fork and broil in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and then pull apart eggplant, separating skin and discarding.<
- Put pulp of eggplant into a large bowl and mash. Add garlic, salt, tahini, and lemon juice, and mix until well combined, but still thick and chunky.
- Spread on a plate and garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and parsley or mint – or pomegranate seeds if available.
Lebanese Stuffed Rice with Chicken
Serves: 8
Prep time: 1½ hours for chicken, 30 minutes for the rice
Ingredients
- 8 cups water
- 2 sticks of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon whole allspice
- 1 teaspoon cardamom
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 bay leaves
Directions
- Put water, spices, salt, onion and chicken into a large cooking pot and allow to cook , uncovered, at medium heat for 1 ½ hours, until chicken meat falls away from the bone.
Skim away any foam that rises to the surface of the water while chickens are cooking. Remove chickens from the broth (retaining broth), and take chicken off the bones in healthy chunks.
Reserve chicken to serve on top of the stuffed rice.
Stuffed Rice
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cups cooked ground beef
- 3 cups water, reserved from cooking chickens
- 3 cups rice, washed but uncooked
- 1 teaspoon allspice
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2 teaspoons salt
Directions
- In a large pot, pour oil and cook onion until soft. Add cooked ground beef. Add water reserved from cooking chickens, and rice, to mixture. Stir in spices, salt and pepper. (Hint from Nicole: you will know if you have the correct ratio of water to rice in the pot if your cooking spoon stands up straight in the middle of the pot.)
Allow mixture to get to a low boil, cover, and cook until water is absorbed into rice.
For the nuts:
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 cup whole almonds
- 1 cup pine nuts
Directions
- While the rice is cooking, pour 1 tablespoon oil into a frying pan and toast almonds until golden brown.
- Remove from pan and allow to drain on a paper towel.
- Repeat process with pine nuts: put 1 tablespoon oil into frying pan and toast pine nuts until golden.
- Drain on a paper towel and set both almonds and pine nuts aside until serving.
- When rice is cooked through, mound on a platter, and place chunks of chicken on top.
- Garnish with toasted almonds and pine nuts, and serve.
To make a gravy for the chicken:
Directions
- Add to the remaining water from the chicken: 1 teaspoon cornstarch (to thicken), 1 chicken bouillon cube and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.
- Stir in ¼ teaspoons of cinnamon, allspice and pepper, and heat, whisking until sauce is smooth.
- Serve on the side with the chicken and rice.
