Mathrooba: Beaten Chicken and Rice
In testing recipes for this book I’d give away food to friends, neighbours and anyone willing to give the dishes a home. My dear friend Anosha, who eagerly claimed the mathrooba, said that I needed a better description than the one I had given her: ‘Hey, it’s me again, do you fancy a savoury porridge for dinner?’ ‘You’re massively underselling it,’ she fed back to me later that night, ‘Even my 2-year-old loved it.’ And she’s right: this is comforting, delicious and truly unique. Mathrooba, meaning ‘beaten’ in Arabic, is typically served during Ramadan, where it’s easy to digest but also satiating. The rice, chicken and spiced tomato base is cooked low and slow until the meat is tender and the rice grains barely discernible. Then, staying true to its name, the mixture is beaten by hand into a consistency similar to a congee, but more heavily spiced and a little thicker. Call it nostalgia but it’s one of my all-time favourite dishes that I’ll happily eat throughout the year, but especial
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