Week 38 - Yemeni

One of our favorite restaurants specializes in Yemeni cuisine, so I was both excited and intimidated by the Week 38 Yemeni challenge. My favorite dish there is chicken zorbian, similar to biryani, and I knew that I wanted to make that, but I also knew that there was little chance that, on my first try, it could live up to the one we've been eating on all of our restaurant visits. I found a Sifra Foods recipe for zorbian that looked delicious and doable, so used that as my starting point.

The zorbian recipe had several components and was decently complicated, with our adapted version coming in at 21 steps in my pre-cooking notes. I started this draft post back in September, but all I wrote about was the easy part, the salad, so we'll see how much of it I get right over three months later (not that anyone will know if I don't). I really need to start doing these timely before I forget all the details of what I did, especially since this is counting for both the 52 week challenge and the AtWCC. Unlike some other times, I think I was also so exhausted from cooking that I didn't even make handwritten notes on what I did. Very helpful.

The ingredients for the chicken zorbian portion of dinner were:

- 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts ($7.82)

- 2 yellow onions ($1.44)

- 2 Russet potatoes ($1.34)

- packet of peeled garlic ($0.40)

- 4 scallions ($0.36)

- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.40)

- 4 + 2 bay leaves [separated these out because they are divided in use] ($0.50)

- 2 + 1 cinnamon sticks ($0.60)

- 5 + 4 cloves ($0.15)

- 5 + 4 cardamom pods ($0.15)

- about 1/2 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp coriander ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp turmeric ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp paprika ($0.10)

- about 1/2 tbsp garlic powder ($0.03)

- about 1/2 tbsp oregano ($0.05)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- 16 oz plain whole milk yogurt ($1.70)

- 3 cups basmati rice ($3)

- parsley for garnish ($0.10)

The zorbian portion of dinner cost about $18.47, although that's a very general ballpark figure since I have no idea how much the spices should really come out to. Overall, this challenge meal came in on the higher side as far as cost, but I was expecting that considering how much was going into making it.

Our steps for making the zorbian (at least as I remember them 3+ months later) were:

1. Prep - chop chicken breasts, slice onions, peel and chop potatoes.

2. Heat about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a Dutch oven, and then add the onions. Fry the onions until golden brown (mine may have gone past golden brown to very brown), and then remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Leave the oil in the Dutch oven.

3. Add the chicken into the same oil in the Dutch oven, and cook until starting to brown. Add 4 bay leaves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 5 cloves, and 5 cardamom pods.

4. Once chicken has browned, add the dry spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper). Mix well, and cook until chicken is just about done.

5. Add water to the pot, and bring it to a simmer. Add enough water so that the potatoes and chicken will both be covered so that the potatoes can cook.

6. Add the potatoes, and immerse them in the water. Cover the pot and simmer over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until potatoes are soft.

7. While potatoes are cooking, finely chop garlic, finely chop scallions, and chop some of the fried onions.

8. Mix the garlic, scallions, and onions with the yogurt. (I think I used 16 oz of yogurt, but really can't remember. Does that look like 16 oz in the bowl?) Blend together. (I used our immersion blender since I had no room for a regular one and also hate using it if I don't have to.)

[I also soaked some raisins in warm water here, but those were just to add on the side for B since most of this was going to be new food for him, and we wanted him to have something familiar. Some zorbian recipes include raisins, so it seemed appropriate.]

9. While the potatoes are cooking (or depending on the time, starting before it), also cook the rice. Put 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 cardamom pods, and 4 cloves into the water while it boils, and use 3 cups of dry basmati rice. Cook for the length of time that the package says minus 25%. [This was supposed to parboil the rice, and we were supposed to strain the rice out of the water after that time, but the rice was completely done when the timer went off. Also, as you can see from a photo further down, I probably shouldn't have made 3 cups of rice based on the amount of meat and potatoes I had.]

10. Add yogurt mixture to the pot once the potatoes are done cooking.

[This is one part where I majorly diverged from the recipe but not intentionally. The original recipe said to remove the potatoes when they were done, drain any extra cooking broth, and then add the yogurt mixture to the meat only. I couldn't remove the potatoes, because I had chopped them smaller and they had gotten so soft they were almost mashed. The original recipe had quartered them, but I made them B bite-size from the start like I do with lots of vegetables when cooking. We also didn't have much extra broth. So I ended up just adding the yogurt mixture to all of it. Also, since the original recipe used lamb instead of chicken, their cook time was much longer, so our chicken was pretty much done a long time ago.]

11. Add the rice on top of the meat and potatoes. [I don't remember if I added water or some chicken broth or something else here, but I remember adding some liquid since it had to simmer some more.] Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until no liquid remains. Then turn off the heat, and leave it covered to steam for about 10-15 minutes.

I don't think I should have made 3 cups of rice...

12. Garnish with the rest of the fried onions and chopped parsley.

The zorbian was good, but of course, not as good as our local Yemeni spot. The proportions were way off - too much rice for the amount of chicken and potatoes. I should have realized this because of how much more lamb the original recipe used, but messed that up. Also, I tried the chicken and potatoes at various points in the cooking process, and the flavor from the spices was amazing before the rice got added into the mix. It was like the rice diluted all the flavors to the point where the spices were so muted. I think I would have liked it better if I had taken the chicken, potatoes, and yogurt and put it over rice. The flavors would have been so much more potent. That said, all the elements were there, and for a first try, it wasn't terrible. I might try again at some point. It just wasn't as good as what we're used to getting from the professionals, and it's hard to justify putting in all this work all the time when we could just support a local business.

The recommended sides for the zorbian were salad and zahawig (similar to salsa), so we paired ours with a quick side salad based on a Yemeni salad, also from Sifra Foods. The Sifra Foods version contained a lot more vegetables than ours did, but the salad we usually get at our neighborhood Yemeni spot is usually just lettuce, tomatoes, and maybe some onions and cucumbers, so considering how much else there was to do for dinner, I was fine going simple.

The ingredients for the salad were:

- 2 large romaine lettuce leaves ($0.40)

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- 2 green onions ($0.25)

- 4 roma tomatoes ($2)

- about 1/4 cup chopped parsley ($0.30)

The ingredients for the dressing were:

- 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar ($0.21)

- 2 large squeezes of lemon juice ($0.15)

- 1.5 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste ($0.03)

The salad cost about $4.14, bringing the total for dinner to about $22.61. It did make a lot of food though.

After all the steps involved in the zorbian, having a simple, easy, straightforward salad to make was just what we needed. All that was needed was prep (slicing the lettuce into thin strands, slicing the onions into thin slices, finely chopping the scallions, chopping the tomatoes (including removing the pulp if needed), chopping up the parsley leaves, and making the dressing), and then mixing it all together. The first bite of the salad tasted really similar to the one at the restaurant (although they might add a little bit of jalapeño or something to the dressing and blitz in a little tomato), and it was so refreshing and flavorful. We were really happy with the salad to balance out the much heavier zorbian, and would happily make this again.

After our first experience making recipes from the Sifra Foods blog, I can pretty confidently say that we'll be doing that again, especially as we explore Yemeni cuisine for the Around the World Cooking Challenge. I'm counting this for the Yemen section of the AtWCC now, because that's hundreds of places down the list and this was a pretty big cooking project. Who knows when we're going to get there? Since we're currently freshly stocked up on some of the common spices used in Yemeni cuisine, we may just split that exploration up over time too. The goal is just to explore new dishes, and we're so excited to do that!