Bahrain Unit

I’m always glad when a video tells you how to pronounce a country, I learned how to pronounce Bah-rain correctly. It’s one of those cool countries in the middle east that is doing all sorts of really interesting stuff (I’ll get to that in my notebooking pages section). Either way, our Bahrain unit was interesting for me who had known NOTHING about the country before we learned more.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Bahrain resources

Bahrain Unit: Bahraini Chicken and Rice

Chicken and rice is a staple, and so I thought this Bahraini Chicken and Rice might be a hit.

I need to learn that while in theory everyone likes chicken legs, in reality everyone complains at me when I cook it. So, no.

Also, looking back over this recipe, I can see where I did a couple of things wrong. So I made the recipe card, for how it’s supposed to go and my directions here for what I actually did.

Bahraini Chicken and Rice ingredients

• 2 diced onions
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon baharat
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons oil
• about 3 pounds of chicken legs
• 1 hot green chili pepper (I used jalapeno)
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
• 5 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2-3 dried limes (I uh forgot this, also don’t really know where to get dried limes)
• 5 green cardamom pods (I used 2 teaspoons ground cardamom)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups rice
• 2 tablespoons parsley

Baharat:

• 2 teaspoons ground pepper
• 3 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 ground cloves
• 1/4 ground cardamom
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Make the Bahraini Chicken!

1. Heat the oil in your dutch oven (I have come to super love my dutch oven) and fry the chicken on both sides until the skin is brown and crispy. Transfer the chicken to a plate. Yep, I did this just fine, no problems here.
2. Add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. Fry the onions until starting to turn brown about 10-12 minutes. Again no problems here.
3. And this is where I went off the rails, I didn’t read the instructions ahead of time and I made the rice separate in my rice cooker. It made gorgeous white rice.
4. Add the ginger, garlic, and pepper and saute for another 2 minutes.
5. Add the baharat and turmeric and cook for another minute.
6. Return the chicken pieces to the dutch oven along with the tomatoes, cardamom, cinnamon, ground cloves, and salt. Add the chicken broth and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for one hour. Realize you really could have waited to cook the rice because it’s now going to sit heating for a good half hour. Sigh.
7. Add the parsley, and rice and stir to a combine. Return to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes until the rice is done.

Bahraini Chicken and Rice

Print

Bahraini chicken is full of spices to bring flavor to your meat.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 diced onions
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon baharat
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons oil
• about 3 pounds of chicken legs
• 1 hot green chili pepper (I used jalapeno)
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
• 5 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2-3 dried limes (I uh forgot this, also don’t really know where to get dried limes)
• 5 green cardamom pods (I used 2 teaspoons ground cardamom)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups rice
• 2 tablespoons parsley

Instructions

1. Heat the oil in your dutch oven and fry the chicken on both sides until the skin is brown and crispy. Transfer the chicken to a plate.
2. Add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. Fry the onions until starting to turn brown about 10-12 minutes.
3. Add the ginger, garlic, and pepper and saute for another 2 minutes.
4. Add the baharat and turmeric and cook for another minute.
5. Return the chicken pieces to the oven along with the tomatoes, cardamom, cinnamon, ground cloves, and salt. Add the chicken broth and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for one hour.
6. Add the parsley, and rice and stir to a combine. Return to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes until the rice is done.

Notes

Mix all of these together to make Baharat spices:

2 teaspoons ground pepper

3 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 ground cloves

1/4 ground cardamom

1 tablespoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

So, like I said, it wasn’t as popular as I was hoping for. I wonder if it would have been more popular if I’d cooked the rice in there as it said to… I also think my particular rendition is dissimilar enough, I’m not even bothering with sharing a Pinterest image.

Bahrain notebooking pages

I grabbed our Asia notebooking pages and filled out the next empty page.

Okay, Bahrain is fascinating geographically and how that affects their country, so most of my fun facts come from that:

• Like several other countries, it’s a collection of islands
• however, unlike several other countries, it has several manmade islands
• Its land size is slowly growing as it is reclaiming land from the sea, rather like the Netherlands.
• It has NO RIVERS
• They get most of their water from desalinization

Yes, this does fascinate me. Just the idea of something like this is fascinating to me.

More great lesson ideas

I’m going to share some middle school ideas, while we did this during high school.

• Beauty and the Beast book club
• Worst astronomy globe ever
• Experimenting with solar power
• Battle of San Jacinto field trip (Texas history)
• Make a shaduf

“Bahrain Mosque Twin Tower Architecture and Moon” by Captain Kimo is licensed under CC BY 2.0