Persian Chicken with Onions
A Persian braised chicken dish with onions, yogurt and warm spices, finished in the oven.
Ingredients
| 1-1.5 kg | chicken (1 whole chicken) | |
| 500 g | onions | |
| 250 g | yogurt | |
| 1 pack | butter | |
| 5-6 cloves | garlic cloves | |
| 4 tablespoons | 60 ml | tomato paste |
| 1 cup | 240 ml | lukewarm water |
| 1 lemon | juice of lemon | |
| 10-12 peppercorns | black peppercorns | |
| 2-3 | cloves (optional) | |
| ½ teaspoon | 2.5 ml | cinnamon |
| 1 teaspoon | 5 ml | turmeric (optional) |
| 1 pinch | ginger | |
| 1 teaspoon | 5 ml | red pepper (paprika) |
Instructions
Clean, wash and debone the chicken. Cut it into 8 pieces and pour lemon juice over them. Let it rest for about 30 minutes. In the heated butter, fry the cloves, black peppercorns and ginger, then add the meat and the finely chopped onion (reserve 4 tablespoons of it), the crushed garlic and the turmeric, sprinkle with the cinnamon and red pepper, and fry everything for 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the beaten yogurt, and after another 5 minutes pour in the warm water. Cover the pot and braise for 40-50 minutes over low heat, until the meat is tender. Fry the reserved onion until golden and add 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste. Transfer the meat to a baking dish, cover it with the fried onion and the remaining tomato paste, pour over 150 ml warm water and bake for about ten minutes in a preheated moderate oven.
Prep 45 min, Cook 80 min, Total 125 min. Serves 4-5.