dish-away: Chicken with Onions Recipe

Boiled then baked chicken with lots of onions, served over plain rice, or Freekeh, or Arabic-style rice stuffing is a typical Arabic dish!!!

The traditional serving way for serving Chicken with Onions is to spread the cooked rice, Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing in a large serving tray, then pile the chicken and onions on top. We then sprinkle toasted or fried pine nuts and almonds on top.

It is normally served with cucumber yoghurt salad, or a mixed lemony salad. I love the Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing with the cucumber yogurt salad with its garlicy flavor.

In addition to it being very tasty, Chicken and Onions is very easy to prepare and probably that is why it is very popular to serve Chicken and Onions with Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing in large gatherings and parties. It is a guaranteed crowd pleaser with minimum effort!

The recipe below is for 1 chicken, increase it depending on the number of servings you want. Also, at home we love it with lots of onions, as you will notice from the recipe. If you don’t fancy the onions you can cut them to half.

Chicken and Onions Recipe

Preparation time: 20 min Cook time: 90 min

Ingredients:

For boiling chicken:

1      whole chicken (about 1.2 kg)
4      medium onions
1      small cinnamon stick
2      bay leaves
2      cloves
1      teaspoon whole black pepper
6      allspice berries (yes, believe it or not, they are called berries!)
4      cloves garlic
1      teaspoon salt (add to taste)
Water

For baking chicken:

2      tablespoons tomato paste
½     teaspoon ground black pepper
¾     teaspoon salt
2      large clove garlic, crushed
1      tablespoon olive oil
1 ½ cup chicken stock

Optional: you can add a teaspoon of mixed spices to the tomato paste dressing for grilling the chicken, it will add a nice brownish color to the roasted chickens. I sometimes do that.

How to make Chicken with Onions Recipe:

Cut chicken into chunks (breast, tights,…). Wash well, then rub the chicken with half a lemon. leave it for a few minutes before you rinse.

Cut the onions into rings.

In a large pot, place half the chopped onions, then place the chicken pieces, then the remainder of the onions. Add all the other ingredients. Add water to cover the chicken plus about 3 fingers above chicken. You need a lot of stock to prepare the Freekeh or rice.

Bring to boil, cover the pan and simmer for about half an hour. You don’t want to fully cook the chicken, rather we want it 3/4 way done.
Remove the chicken and the onions from the stock and drain.
Strain the stock. Reserve 1 ½ cup for grilling the chicken. Reserve the rest of the stock for cooking the Freekeh (check Freekeh Recipe) or rice.
Mix, the tomato paste, black pepper, salt, olive oil, and crushed garlic.

Rub the chicken with the mixture. Place the boiled chicken and onions in a large pan. Note: you can place half the onion in the bottom and half over the chicken, or all of the onion in the bottom, or all the onions on top – If you place all the onions on top you will need to bake it for a little while longer.

Pour the 1 ½ cup chicken stock on top.

Bake in preheated oven at 375° F for about 45 minutes - until chicken is cooked and has a nice roasted color. For a nice color you can broil the chicken for 5 minutes at the end.