Harees recipe

Wheat and bone-in chicken cooked for hours then beaten with a pestle until grain and meat become one smooth paste.

13 hours and 30 minutesmedium6 ingredients

Ingredients

• 500 g harees wheat
• 1000 g bone-in chicken
• 2000 ml water
• 2 tsp salt
• 100 g ghee
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

How to make Harees

1. Rinse 500 g of harees wheat and soak it in cold water overnight, at least 8 hours.
2. Put 1 kg of bone-in chicken in a heavy pot with the drained wheat, 2 litres of water and 2 teaspoons of salt; the bones are what give the porridge its silkiness.
3. Bring to a boil, skim the foam, then cover and cook on the lowest heat for 4 to 5 hours, adding hot water so the grain always stays submerged.
4. Lift out the chicken, pull the meat from the bones and discard the skin and bones.
5. Return the meat to the pot and beat the mixture hard with a wooden pestle or a sturdy spoon handle for 15 to 20 minutes: harees is named after the Arabic verb meaning to mash, and this step is the dish.
6. Keep beating until no whole grain is left and the harees falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon; the Kuwaiti version stays slightly coarser than the Emirati one.
7. Spread it on a platter, pour 100 g of melted ghee over the surface and dust with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
8. Serve very hot, with extra ghee at the table.

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