Maklooba

Posted by warden2three at recipegoldmine.com April 2001

We're having this later in the week. It's also known as "upside down". It does take a lot of time to prepare, but it is so worth it...

1 whole cauliflower
1 medium eggplant
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 chicken, cut into serving pieces or
    1 pound lamb stew meat (personally I think
    it's better with lamb)
3 cup water
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups raw rice, washed and drained

Remove green cone from eggplant, then slice eggplant lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place eggplant slices in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Set aside for one hour so that the juice drains from the eggplant.

Cut cauliflower into bite size pieces, rinse and let drain dry. In a 5-quart pan, place meat, water, tomato sauce, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat until meat is tender. Remove meat from broth and set aside. To the broth, add the 1/4 cup vegetable oil and rice, stir.

Bring to a boil on high heat. Cook on medium heat until excess water is absorbed, frequently mix rice bottom-up, so that it will not stick to the bottom of the pot. Cook covered on low heat, stirring occasionally until rice absorbs all liquid and softens to desired consistency. Let stand on very low heat for 10 minutes. If rice does not reach desired consistency, add more water and simmer longer.

In the meantime, heat 1/2 cup vegetable oil in a skillet. Rinse and pat dry eggplant slices, then fry on both sides in hot oil until they turn golden brown. Place fried eggplant slices on napkins to absorb excess oil. Set aside.

Fry cauliflower in oil a couple minutes. Remove rice from heat and transfer to a big bowl. In the bottom of the 5-quart pot used to cook the rice, arrange the meat pieces side by side.

On top of meat, arrange eggplant pieces side by side. Layer cauliflower on top. Spoon rice on top of layers, pressing rice well with a spoon. Cook covered on low heat for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, let stand for 15 more minutes.

To serve: Uncover pot, place a platter that has a diameter several inches larger than the diameter of the pot face-down over pot. Place one hand over platter and the other on bottom of pot. In one motion, turn assembly upside down. Gently pat bottom and sides of pot to ease rice out of it and onto the platter. Gently, lift pot upward. How well you press the rice when you spoon it into pot will determine if it will mold or not.