Omani Cuisine

I envy you Italians for your beautiful country, your excellent football tournaments, and most of all, your amazing cuisine. As I am the biggest fan of the world’s greatest football club Juventus, you might assume that I dislike supporters of other teams, but I actually enjoy staying in touch with all Italian fans around here, so I invited a fan of the club AS Roma for lunch to have the favorite meal of Italian fans: pasta!
As a token of my Italian love, I named this recipe “Pollo Della Pasta De Roma” or the chicken pasta of Roma in English.

Ingredients: (for 3 persons)

• 300 grams of penne(tube) pasta
• 3 large chicken breasts - chopped into small pieces
• 3 medium sized brown onions
• 4 medium sized capsicums (green, yellow, red, and orange)
• 4 clover of garlic crushed
• some parsley
• 1 tablespoon of wheat
• 100 grams of tomato paste
• salt/pepper
• butter
• Nando’s hot peri peri grind (crushed spiced)
• Nando’s wild her peri-peri souce (hot sauce)

Method:

• Pasta

1. Boil water in a pot. When the water starts boiling add salt, pepper and oil while stirring.
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water and keep for about 10 minutes.
3. Drain the water from the pasta.
4. Chop 3/4 of the 4 kinds of capsicum and an onion into small short strips.
5. Fry the capsicum and the onion in on an oiled frying pan until the onion turns yellow and capsicum softens.
6. Add the pasta to the pan with capsicum and onion while stirring. Add some of the Nando’s crushed spices while stirring. Stir the pasta mix for five minutes and then serve it with the chicken.

• Chicken and Sauce

1. Crush the remaining capsicum and the2 onions into fine little.
2. Put some oil on a hot cooking pot, add some butter. When the butter melts in the oil add the crushed mix of capsicum and onion. Keep stirring the mix until the onion turns to a golden color.
3. Add the chicken pieces to the mix and stir the mix until the chicken turns white.
4. Add salt, pepper, and the Nando’s crushed spices. Keep stirring for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the Nando’s wild herb sauce and some fine chopped parsley. Keep stirring for another couple of minutes.
6. Add the tomato paste and the wheat while stirring.
7. After mixing everything together add a mug of water and stir the mix well. Cover the pot well and keep it on a low heat until the chicken is cooked. If all the water is gone and the chicken is not cooked add little more water and wait until it is cooked.

I hate it when people make cooking sound like a complex job that requires knowledge of specific mysterious formulae. Anybody can cook. As long as you do the very basics right, whatever else you do is optional and rarely anything will severally affect the way your food tastes. This meal is one of those really easy ones to do. The Cardiff Cabsa is what we used to cook all the time during uni days in Cardiff, I learnt how to make it there, the recipe could not be traced to a single Gulf or Indian country because guys from different places in the Gulf chipped in their own additions and twists over the years. Check it out here:

Ingredients (For Four People):

• 2 mugs of basmati rice
• 1 whole large chicken, sliced into 6 or 8 pieces, skin removed optionally
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped into small pieces
• 1 chili, chopped into small rings
• 1 garlic clover, crushed
• tomato paste
• 1 chicken stock (Maggi cubes)
• 1 tablespoon of mixed arabian kabsa spices
• 1 tablespoon of turmeric (kurkum)
• 1 teaspoon dried lemon poweder
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper

Method:

1. In a large oiled pot fry onion until colour turns to redish yellow, add chopped tomoto, chili and crushed garlic and stir until juicy syrup is created.
2. Add chicken, turmeric, spices, and stir to cover all chicken pieces with spices.
3. Add tomato paste and stir.
4. Add 4 mugs of water, wait to boil for a while, add the chicken stock.
5. Heat on high heat for 20 minutes, check using the knife test to see if chicken is cooked.
6. Lower heat, add rice, cover the pot using the lid and wait for 20 minutes. Make sure not to lift the lid so that the steam does not escape.
7. Take out and eat!