Name: Stuffed Chicken (Djaj mahshi)
Cuisine: Palestinian
Ingredients: 1 lemon; 1½ tsp salt; 1 large chicken (about 1.5 kilos/3 lbs 7 oz); 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg; 150 g (5 oz) ground lean beef; 1 tsp white pepper; ½ tsp allspice; ½ tsp nutmeg; ¾ tsp salt; ⅓ tsp pepper; ⅓ tsp cinnamon (or 1½ tsp mixed spices with an extra dash of nutmeg and cinnamon); 1 tbs butter; ½ cup regular-grain rice; 30 g (1 oz) fried pine nuts

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Classic Palestinian Cuisine

By Christiane Dabdoub Nasser

Published 2000

About

Easy to prepare, chicken stuffed with meat, rice and pine nuts is a festive dish and its success depends greatly on the clever use of fresh spices. In preparing this dish, you have to count one stuffed chicken for every four persons.

Ingredients

1 lemon
1 large chicken (about 1.5 kilos/3 lbs

Method

Rub the chicken with the two halves of a lemon and set it aside for half an hour, after which rinse it under the tap and leave it in a colander to drain. Just before stuffing it, rub the inside with salt and nutmeg and sprinkle salt and white pepper on the outside.

Meanwhile brown the ground beef in the butter on a high heat, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid from the meat is