While looking through a Syrian cookbook, I came across a dutch oven recipe for hameen, a dish that required a whole chicken, 5 hours, and long-grain white rice. It sounded delicious, but I definitely had to switch it up a little bit. This recipe is pretty simple and the ingredients are all really basic, and you should have most, if not all of them in your house already.

I decided not to put fresh tomatoes in this. Mostly because I don’t even like tomatoes, but also because I was adding tomato paste (as opposed to the tomato sauce in the original recipe) and thought that was enough tomato flavor. I had mushrooms lying around, and decided to add those to the dish, they were definitely a nice treat in there.

Hameen, adapted from Deal Delights 2:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 chicken
• 2 onions, sliced thinly or chopped finely
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1-28 ounce can tomatoes, sliced + juices
• 1 1/4 cup  brown rice (or white)
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil, if needed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Heat dutch oven over high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper and brown on both sides. Remove from pan.

3. While chicken is browning, chop or slice the onions. After removing the chicken, check if there is fat in the pot. If so, add onions. If not, add a tablespoon of oil and then brown the onions and garlic. This will take about 5 minutes. Don’t forget to stir!

4. Add tomatoes, juices, and water, stir.

5. Add rice and allspice, then return the chicken to the pot.

6. Bring mixture to a boil, then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

8. Place in oven and cook for 1 1/2 hours.

9. Lower the heat to 250 and cook another 1 1/2 hours. Chicken should be soft, and rice should be fluffy. Serve hot.

Hameen, or Baked Chicken and Rice is a post from: The Kosher Foodies

Update: after you read this post and roll your yebra, go ahead and cook it!

Yebra, or stuffed grape leaves, is a traditional Syrian food that can be prepared in a few different ways. But before you can eat it, you have to actually stuff and roll the grape leaves with hashu (there’s a pareve version, too). To make a whole 16-oz. jar of grape leaves, you need to double the hashu recipe.

I actually used a slightly different recipe for hashu. This one is from a cookbook called Deal Delights, a pretty old book with traditional Syrian recipes.

Hashu ingredients (doubled from original recipe):

• 2/3 cup of white rice, rinsed
• 2 pounds chopped meat
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons allspice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Salt and pepper.

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in bowl.

To stuff the grape leaves you will need:

• A colander to rinse each individual leaf
• A knife to cut off the end of the stem
• A board to work on

Directions:

1. Place leaf vein-side up on board (I used a plastic cutting board) and cut off the thick stem on the bottom. Place about a tablespoon of hashu in the center of the leaf (near the bottom edge) and roll the sides over it. Roll up, tucking in the sides that start sticking out. Place on parchment-lined sheet to freeze. Continue until you finish the hashu or the grape leaves.

2. If you have leftover hashu, take about two tablespoons and form into ball. We always fight over these!

3. With the leftover grape leaves, you can make pareve yebra, or save it for your next batch.

From this batch, I got 66 meat yebra, with eight leaves  left over. When I finished a layer, I put a piece of wax paper on top and started again. I put the tray in the freezer – when they are nice and frozen, I’ll switch them to zip top bags. They’ll be ready to use straight from the freezer for a delicious Shabbat meal.

Stay tuned to read how to cook the yebra.

Rolling Yebra is a post from: The Kosher Foodies