Summary

Ingredients

• 1 chicken
• 100 g walnuts
• 8 tablespoon grenadine (pomegranate syrup), Persian
• possibly citric acid
• 2 small onions
• 8 basil leaves
• some parsley
• some orange juice (preferably self-squeezed, from 1/2 - 1 orange)
• some honey
• 1 packet chicken seasoning
• some chilli flakes, possibly
• 2 cup basmati
• salt and pepper
• water
• some oil or butter
• some saffron
• 1 cup barberries (from the Persian shop)

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Instructions

1. Mix the onions and walnuts together very finely in the food processor. Add the basil leaves and pomegranate syrup and continue mixing. Now we add salt, pepper, some parsley, possibly a few chilli flakes and a small cup of barberries to the walnut-onion-basil-pomegranate syrup. We stir the whole thing by hand. Preheat the oven to 200 ° C.
2. We fill the chicken with this mixture and sew it up. Mix the chicken seasoning with oil and brush the chicken with it. Now put the chicken in a roasting tube, cut into the top and place in the oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, prepare rice as follows: A Persian rice cooker is best for preparing the Persian saffron rice, but an Asian one is also suitable and, if necessary, a pot, which should be non-stick coated, is also suitable.
4. Wash the rice, add salt and cook it covered with water in a saucepan or rice cooker until it is a little soft but not mushy (!). The rice should be a little too firm rather than too soft. Then pour off the water. Mix 1/2 teaspoon of saffron with 1 tablespoon of hot water. Transfer to the bottom of the pot or rice cooker. Pour some oil on the bottom. Pour the rice over it, add a few flakes of butter and cook the rice in the Persian rice cooker until browned.
5. If you have an Asian rice cooker that lets the switch jump up when it`s done, you have to press the switch back down another 2-3 times (sometimes it takes a while before it can be pressed down again) to get a nice rice crust to get. In the pot you have to make sure that the lid closes tightly. You can also wrap the lid with a tea towel for this purpose. In the saucepan, the rice should be cooked softly over low heat for about 40 minutes using the steam alone.
6. When the rice is ready, we put a teaspoon of saffron and 2 tablespoons of hot water in a small bowl, stir it and add 1/3 of the rice and mix the whole thing until the rice is yellow. We mix this rice with the rest of the rice.
7. When the 1 1/4 hours that the chicken has been in the oven have passed, cut open the roasting tube and brush the chicken with a mixture of orange juice, honey and the remaining chicken seasoning. Leave the chicken in the oven for another 10-20 minutes until crispy. Serve with yogurt or salad. It sounds harder than it is and it`s really worth the effort !!!
8. Note: You can get the pomegranate syrup in Turkish or Persian shops. In contrast to the local (and Turkish) pomegranate syrup, the Persian is rather sour which is typical for this dish. If you can`t get a Persian syrup, you can buy one from the Turkish shop and acidify it with citric acid (you can find it in the baking department). 1 teaspoon until a bag is, depending on your taste, quite adequate to turn the sweet pomegranate syrup into a sour one.