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SAFFRON SCENTED CHICKEN PILAF

SAFFRON SCENTED CHICKEN PILAF

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Serves: 6

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  • Gluten Free
  • Nigella Recipe

Call me Scheherazade, but I'm in my turquoise gauze veil and jewelled slippers for this one. The cinnamon and lemony yoghurt marinade gives the chicken a soft, perfumed tenderness; the saffron in the rice, itself studded with nuts and the musky breath of cardamom, is almost lit up with gold. Cook this and people will want gratefully to strew your path with rose petals for evermore.

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Ingredients

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  • 500 grams chicken breasts (cut into 2 x 1cm / ΒΌ inch cubes)
  • 200 grams Greek yoghurt
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon saffron strands
  • 1 litre chicken stock (made from instant bouillon concentrate)
  • 15 grams unsalted butter
  • 3 tablespoons groundnut oil
  • 500 grams basmati rice
  • 4 cardamom pods (bruised)
  • zest and juice of 1 lemon
  • 50 grams cashew nuts
  • 50 grams flaked almonds
  • 25 grams pinenuts
  • 4 tablespoons pistachios (shelled)
  • 1 bunch fresh parsley (chopped)
FOREVER SUMMER

As featured in

FOREVER SUMMER

Method

  1. Marinate the chicken pieces in the yoghurt, lemon and cinnamon for about an hour. Soak the saffron threads in the chicken stock.
  2. Over medium heat, in a large pan with a lid, melt the butter along with 1 tablespoon oil and add the rice, stirring it to coat until glossy. Pour in the saffron and chicken stock, add the cardamom pods, lemon juice and zest and bring the pan to the boil, then clamp on a lid and turn the heat down to very low; a heat diffuser, if you've got one, would be good here. Cook like this for about 10-15 minutes, by which time the rice should have absorbed the liquid and be cooked through.
  3. While the rice is cooking, shake the excess yoghurt marinade off the chicken using a sieve. Then fry the meat in a hot pan with the remaining spoonful or so of oil, and do this in batches so that the chicken colours rather than just pallidly stews to cookedness.
  4. When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and fork through the pan-bronzed chicken pieces. Toast all the nuts except the pistachios, by simply shaking them in an oil-less frying-pan over a medium heat until they colour and begin to give off their waxy scent, and then add them to the pilaf along with the chopped parsley. Pile everything on to a plate and add a fabulously green sprinkling of slivered or roughly chopped pistachios.

Additional information - for gluten free make sure the stock concentrate is gluten free.

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  • I made this dish last night and my family loved it

    Posted by Annie22 on 5th Jun 2012 at 4.14

  • Made this for dinner this evening. I loved it.....and so did my guests. A lot! It did need salt added at the table. Probably the best way round.

    Posted by lilymarlene on 22nd Aug 2012 at 22.35

  • I did it, and all my family love it, I have to say it's one of my favorite recipes. Thanks

    Posted by MacaRodriguez on 12th Oct 2012 at 17.00

  • I made this for the family last night & it was given the big "thumbs up" by all. What I loved about this dish was how easy it was to throw together... now to impress the friends!!

    Posted by melanyrangitutia on 21st Oct 2012 at 1.06