Albaloo Polow

Ingredients:

500 g basmati rice
4 boneless chicken breasts (and skinless)
1kg sour cherries (or black cherries or cherries)
1 kg sugar
2 onions, (medium)
1/2 teaspoon saffron
cooking oil
salt
black pepper, (optional)
potatoes, (optional)

Directions:

Wash the cherries and remove the stones. Add sugar. Use less sugar if you are using normal cherries rather than sour or black cherries. Bring to boil and cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool down completely. Remove the extra syrup.

Peel and thinly slice the onions. Wash the chicken breasts, add the onions, salt and black pepper, and a glass of hot water, and cook over medium heat for 20-25 minutes.

Allow to cool, then filter the chicken juice and save for later use.

Follow instructions for preparing Polow until the rice is rinsed.

Mix half of the rinsed rice with the cherries.

Pour 2 spoonfuls of cooking oil and half a glass of hot water in the pot. Peal and cut the potatoes in about 1 cm thin slices and spread the potato slices on the bottom of the pot.

Follow with the cherry-rice and cover with half of the remaining rice.

Spread chicken over the rice, and cover with the remaining rice. Shape into a cone. (Note from the blogger: You don't necessarily have to cook the chicken together with the rice. You can also cook it seperately. In this case mix the cherries with all the rice and pour over it only the cherry syrup)

Mix 2-3 spoonfuls of cooking oil with the cherry syrup and chicken juice and pour the mix over the rice.

Put a kitchen towel over the top of the pot, then add the cover. This helps keep the steam in. Cook over low heat for about one hour.

Dissolve the saffron in a bit of hot (but not boiling) water or soak the threads in the hot water for several minutes prior to use (this helps release the beneficial components).

When the rice is cooked, remove some of it and mix it with the dissolved saffron.

When serving, spread saffron-rice over Albaloo-Polow.

(anvari.org, slightly adapted)