Harees is one of the oldest recorded dishes on the planet today. It is also called harissa, arisa, haris or oriza and is the precursor to the famed Haleem of Hyderabad. The name harees comes from the Arabic word “harasa,” which means to mash, or to squash. It is a dish that arose in the Middle East and travelled across the Muslim landscape, changing in small ways to adapt to local tastes by adding local spices. Harees is traditionally made with red meat and beef, but we use chicken as a substitute here.
Wheat stews date back to the Sassanian Empire, the last Persian dynasty, which ruled between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD before the rise of the Muslim empire. Nawal Nasrallah writes in her book Delights from the Garden of Eden that hareesa was and still is a beloved porridge, so much so that poems were recited in its praise in the Medieval times in Iraq. The ancient Al Baghdadi’s Kitab al-Tabikh cookbook from 1226 gives a recipe for hareesa that uses six pounds of meat cooked with eight pounds of shelled wheat. “Keep a steady fire going until the first quarter of the night is gone, stirring all the time; then leave over a good fire. Put in quartered chicken with cinnamon bark and leave until midnight… Leave until dawn, then stir again and remove… sprinkle with cumin and cinnamon ground fine separately.” Amazingly similar to the way the dish is prepared today. Source Vered's Israeli Cooking.
This is a traditional Omani version, creamy and delicately flavoured. The magic is in slow-cooking the wheat; this version does not include pounding the grain or other techniques to break it up; the sublime creaminess comes from slow cooking. There is no way pressure cooking, so common today, achieves the same dish, well-integrated flavours that come together beautifully in the stew. I added the sprinkle of sweet onions and crisp fried chicken as a topping for added sweetness to the dish. The Omani oil is essential, making the dish rich and luxurious with additional warming flavours.
This is a slow dish that requires commitment, but trust me, it is sublime.
Felicia Campbell is an award-winning writer, editor and producer. Her cookbook is more of a historical memoir of the region, its food, its culture and its deep history. This could be one of those cookbooks that you can read as a novel, but I love to rush into my kitchen and cook the dishes, knowing their deep history.
For more recipes from this fabulous cookbook, click here.
Ingredients:
For the porridge:
1 cup whole grain wheat berries or cracked wheat
15 green cardamom pods
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Salt, to taste
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons ghee
10 cups water
For the chicken:
11/2 lb chicken breast and thigh, boneless
10 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
10 black peppercorns
3 cloves
8 green cardamom pods
Salt, to taste
1/2 onion, roughly diced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
3 tablespoons ghee
2 tablespoons ghee
2 onions, thinly sliced
For the Omani oil:
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
3 dried red chillies
1 cup ghee
Lime wedges to serve
Cilantro, to serve
Start with the porridge. Add all the ingredients to a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer gently for 2 hours. Occasionally, stir the pot, scraping the bottom of the pan to ensure the wheat does not stick to the bottom and burn. Top up with water as needed.
Add all the ingredients for the chicken to a pot and bring to a boil. Scoop off any scum and simmer gently, with the lid closed, for 60 minutes. Cool completely. Strain the stock, keeping the chicken and stock. Shred the chicken thoroughly.
Keep 1/4 of the chicken aside for use later.
Add the chicken stock and shredded chicken to the wheat berries and simmer for another 2 hours. The wheat berries will begin to form a thick porridge that needs to get creamy and silky. Again, scrape the bottom of the pan; the porridge tends to get sticky and burn at the bottom of the pot if not paid attention to.
While the porridge is simmering, heat the ghee for the onions in a frying pan on medium heat. Add the onions and fry until the onions are light golden in colour, about 4 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels. Set aside.
To make the Omani oil, add the coriander, cumin, and chillies to a dry frying pan and roast them on low heat. Once they are aromatic, about 1 1/2 minutes, add the ghee and continue to fry on the lowest flame possible for 10 minutes. Strain the ghee through a fine-mesh sieve and set aside.
Heat the 3 tablespoons of ghee from the chicken section. Add the shredded chicken and fry until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels and store in an airtight box.
After 4 hours, taste the porridge for salt and creaminess. The wheat berries should have broken down, and the porridge should have a creamy texture, with a soft bite from the berries. I usually cook the porridge for a longer time, up to 6 hours, because it gets creamier, and the flavours have time to blend in well.
To serve, heat the porridge. It tends to thicken as it sits, so feel free to add water to achieve a runny consistency. Top with the fried onions and chicken. Drizzle one tablespoon of the Omani ghee on top. Serve with lime wedges and cilantro.
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