Pilaf with Chickpeas

Mehmet the Conqueror’s Grand Vizier used to serve this as a working lunch in divan, the cabinet meeting held on a Friday. Into it he tossed a gold chickpea for some lucky pasha to discover (or break a tooth on): the Ottoman version of a sixpence in the Christmas pudding, perhaps. The sultan did not attend divan in person, but he might watch and listen from a small curtained window overhead. Or he might not: his pashas never knew.