Baked rice in clay pots, loaded with butter, milk, and cream, can be savory or sweet. Today I am showing you the savory one. Incredible texture and heavenly taste. One of the easiest on pot meals like this chicken and yellow rice recipe.
Meammar rice in one of the authentic, traditional Egyptian rice recipes, as old as Egypt I guess :). Meammar means loaded, and as you can see authentically, this rice is loaded with full cream, ghee and full-fat milk. The slow cooking of rice in the oven gives it a lot of time to soak up all these flavors, to come up unique, fluffy, and tastes heavenly good.
Of course, this is not your everyday rice but, we need some luxury every now and then, and if you have a special occasion, this is a one-pot meal that will impress your guests and leave you with fewer pots to clean.
This rice can be made meatless, with red meat, minced meat or chicken so you choose, I prefer to make it with chicken for a one-dish meal, throw it in the oven and forget about it for an hour until done.
This is my Aunt Mona recipe and she probably got it from her mom - my sitto, we called my grandmother Sitto. I did not get to know my grandmother - father side, but I knew my Sitto - mother's side.
I wish I have her wedding picture, she was so young probably 16 years old. She looked so proud in her white wedding dress which was so simple yet elegant, with short hair and a tiara around her head, with a white round face and gray colored eyes, she was really beautiful until the very last day of her life. My Sitto was a great cook, she cooked everyday letting no one - even her daughters- cook for her, she was an authentic traditional cook.
I really admire the way they lived back then, they did not have meat and chicken every day, which a challenge I am going through now 😁, they used to get on hands and knees to scrub floors, not dragging themselves to the gym and trying to find excuses not to 😀, they ate fresh produce of the season and they used to raise their own chicken, ducks, and pigeons never knew frozen vegetables or meals. All my grandparents die of age, just probably a week at most in the hospital in comma or some sort of sudden system failure and that's it.
I remember my Sitto, grabbing a chair and sitting so close to the television- back then it was probably 14 inch at most- so she can see and hear, she refused to wear glasses or hearing aids, the woman had pride and I cannot blame her, she was strong until the day she collapsed. She was funny a very funny woman, loved to laugh, and watched only Ismail Yasin who was a comedian Abbott and Costello style. She lived a simple calm life and died calmly without much fuss. May she rest peacefully in heaven.
I tried to lessen the fat content in this recipe without jeopardizing the taste, and I think I did a pretty good job, first I used 1% milk not full cream milk, I used butter instead of ghee and I used only half the amount, I also used a combination of Mascarpone cheese and sour cream instead of using the usual milk cream we use in Egypt which is mainly milk fat.
This recipe is so popular in Egypt in banquets and especially during the holy month of Ramadan. I hope you'll give it a try and as usual Enjoy!!.
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Savory Rice with cream (Egyptian Meammar Rice)
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups of short grain rice - like cal rose.
- 2 Tablespoon unsalted butter divided.
- 5 chicken tenders. Note1.
- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste.
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.
- 2 Tablespoon sour cream.
- 1 Table spoon Mascarpone cheese.
- 1.5 cup Chicken broth any type.
- 1.5 cup milk.
Instructions
- Start by washing the rice and soak in water for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Meanwhile in a pan over medium heat, melt 1 Tablespoon of butter and brown the chicken tenders, 2-3 minutes each side, season with some salt and pepper, set aside.
- Drain the rice, add salt, pepper, sour cream, Mascarpone cheese and the remaining 1 Tablespoon of butter, mixing all very well until all rice is covered well.
- In a deep oven dish, authentically a clay one, add about 5 Tablespoons of the rice mixture to cover the bottom and spread evenly.
- Add the chicken pieces if using, then cover with the remaining rice, level the surface.
- In a pot over medium heat, add the milk along with the broth and bring to a boil, turn off the heat and season with a dash of black pepper.
- Add the hot liquids to the rice , place the dish into a bigger oven dish or pan filled halfway with water.
- Bake in the oven for almost an hour until the rice is fully cooked and the surface turns golden brown.
- Let it cool down and serve.
- Enjoy!!
Reuben A Bhate
Good afternoon, this is Reuben. Your recipe for Meammar seems very tasty. I have to try it out. I had a query whether do you have to cover the pot with a lid or foil while baking the rice in the oven
Amira
Hello Reuben, I did not cover mine. But, if your oven is hot and the top started to brown before the rice cooks, then you can cover it with a piece of aluminum foil until it is done. I hope this helps.
Molly Lindley
Hello, I am hoping to make this dish this week. Do you cover the dish when you put it in the oven?
Amira
Molly, no you do not but if your oven for some reason browned the top too quickly and rice is still not done yet, you may want to cover it to prevent further browning until the rice is done.
Chemene Blockey
Hi. Thank you for the recipe. It was delicious. We have leftovers. What is the best way to reheat?
Amira
Thank you so much Chemene for your feedback, I am happy you liked it. For leftovers I like adding like 2 Tablespoons of water/milk and reheat covered in the oven. For an easier option just place in a microwave safe plate, cover and heat for about 1 minute.
Joann
Thank you so very much for this recipe. Growing up my mother made a rice dish that we all loved but when my father became ill she had to change her way of cooking and this is one of the dishes that got left behind. When I started cooking for my own family my mother was no longer with us and I could not find anyone who made this recipe as a side dish. Everyone would tell me it was a rice pudding recipe but I knew it wasn't. This is the closest thing I've been able to find to her recipe in 25 years! I'm so grateful that I ended up on your site you've brought a happy memory back to life
Amira
Joann, thank you so much for your sweet comment. It is indeed a heavy recipe that one can indulge in every now and then. I am so touched that this dish brings back good memories for you and I hope you'll make even more happy memories making it.
Mike H.
I made this for the first time tonight. I had never used short grained rice before, so this was really new for me. I browned the tenderloins in olive oil, but used ghee instead of butter in the rice mixture. I used whole milk too with chicken bone broth. I have a terra cotta clay cooker, but thought it would be too big for the amount of food, so took my 5 qt crock pot insert out of the slow cooker and used that. I put it in a glass baking dish filled with water, as instructed. i originally set the time for 50 minutes, since the instructions said "almost an hour". At 50 minutes, it was just beginning to get slightly brown in one small area, so I kept an eye on it and ended up baking it for about another 10 to 15 minutes, which put it at about a full hour in the oven. It was delicious. The chicken was very tender. When I got a second helping, I sprinkled a little ras el hanout on it to give just a little extra flavor and it tasted great. We will definitely be having this again. Thank you for sharing this recipe. It was easy to make.
Amira
Thank you so much Mike for your feedback. Your details are very important for others, I am really impressed. Do you make your own ras el hanout? I've bought some but still did not use them. I will definitely try sprinkling it on some rice dishes to test. So happy you liked the recipe.