Biryani, Iraqi Style

By the thirteenth century, the Arab cooks had learnt how to cook rice the mufalfal way (with separated grains) as we love to have it today. The basic rice was cooked with meat and broth, sometimes enhanced with chickpeas or pistachios, or colored yellow with saffron. In some of the recipes, meatballs were added, in others, pulses, such as lentils or mung beans, were mixed with the rice (Ibn al-‘Adeem; al-Baghdadi). It was at this developed stage that rice dishes migrated eastwards wi