Recipes for Ramadhan: Harees

Harees with bits of chicken.

In Oman, harees is often cooked during the fasting month of Ramadhan for the iftar meal, as it is easily digested. This recipe is from Eating Omani by Omer Al Aamri.

Harees  هريس

Harees is a thick porridge usually made with chicken. Its consistency is sometimes described as ‘gelatinous’. It is fairly bland by itself and is sometimes eaten with the local chilli sauce, which is more sour than spicy. The Zanzibari version is called “boko”.

Ingredients

1 kg wheat

1 kg fresh chicken – do not use chicken that has been frozen

4 litres of water

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method

Soak the wheat for half a day.

Wash chicken, remove skin and cut into small pieces. There is no need to debone the chicken.

Place water, chicken and soaked wheat into a pressure cooker.

Cook for an hour on medium heat.

Add salt and pepper.

Cook till the cooker whistles, or until all the water has been absorbed – the individual wheat grains should congeal.

Interested?

Get the recipe for Omani coffee

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