I stumbled upon the cookbook, Sirocco, while looking for Hemsley + Hemsley's, but had seen it elsewhere before so I knew I wanted to flick through this given the chance. While browsing through the book, my eyes were immediately drawn to a recipe for Chickenberry rice. It's pretty much what the name suggests, chicken, berries and rice but the seller was the crispy bottom (you have to see the picture to know what I'm walking about!)! It is similar to an Indian Biriyani although this has more of an Iranian flavour profile to it. I found a similar recipe for chickenberry rice here.
Yay or Nay: Yay
This was delicious, the berries after being steamed are sweet, plump and juicy; the chicken was delicately spiced and the rice soaked the flavour of everything!
TIP: The recipe does state, if using a gas stove, to use the lowest heat but even doing that I still burned the bottom, so I would shorten the steaming time and cook the rice a little more in the first part of the recipe to avoid burning!
We all know you can lose many hours scrolling through Pinterest and I was on the search for something to bring along to a work potluck breakfast. At first I thought this would be a nice healthy dish to bring but decided against it as I realised that the 'Surprise Entree' might have to be savoury rather than sweet. I made these Individual Baked Oatmeal muffins anyway as a tester for the actual day (even though I didn't use it in the end!)
Yay of Nay: Yay-ish but I'll reserve judgement until I try them again!
I did doctor the recipe as I thought 1/4 cup of honey was quite a lot, but it ended up being that they did need that extra sweetness and no amount of choc chips or berries would help that. I would also up the amount of berries in each portion to really get the flavour of it. Fresh raw cranberries so add a lovely tart dimension to it!
