I was very close to not getting my share of desserts from FF53 yesterday. A lot of party-goers asked me about the Chicken Mandi recipe and I couldn’t give them the complete recipe. I promised that I will be sharing the recipe soon. And that soon is today. 😉 Chicken Mandi is a recipe originated from Yemen (I asked my BFF, Google). It is some sort of a one-pot meal and similar to Biryani. To enlighten you more, here’s what my BFF said: “The main thing which differentiates mandi is that the meat is cooked in the tandoor (taboon in Hadhrami), which is a special kind of oven. The tandoor is usually a hole dug in the ground and covered inside by clay. To cook mandi, dry wood is placed in the tandoor and burned to generate a lot of heat turning into charcoal. Then the meat is suspended inside the tandoor without touching the charcoal. After that, the whole tandoor is closed without letting any of the smoke out.” These days, this can be done inside the usual oven: the chicken is placed over a rack; under that, the rice is cooked in a stainless cooking pot or any oven-proof pot. Is it confusing? Okay, you will understand later as I will provide you the video of the source recipe. 🙂 Cooking this Mandi is a little challenging for me as I am not sure if my cooking pot can be used inside the oven and this is my first time to cook this kind of meal. Another thing is that I never made my own spice. For Mandi’ sake, I did my first ever spice mix. Hawaij is a traditional Yemeni spice from various ground spice mixtures. It is usually made from cumin, black pepper, turmeric and cardamom. But because I am scaredy cat, I did not include cumin in the spice I made. Now, for the recipe: One of my 2015 resolutions is to explore more foods from other cultures. And I am proud to say that this dish will be on my list whenever there’s a celebration that’s going to happen. Chicken Mandi can be served with blended fresh tomatoes with chili and yogurt. Also, this can be served with caramelized onions. And I must say that caramelized onions is my new love. If I could marry it, I really would.