Haleem Recipe with Chicken

Instructions

The Night Before (or at least 4 hours before)

Soak the barley and channa and mung dals in room temperature water. I prefer to do this in separate bowls, but there is no reason not to soak them all in 1 bowl.
Leave them on the kitchen counter, no need to cover.

Prep Work - Aromatics & Chicken

Finely chop the onion.
And grate, mince or pound your garlic and ginger, if not using a paste.
Chop up your chicken into bitesize pieces.

Let's get Cooking

Heat the oil and ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat and fry the onions for 2 minutes.
Add the garlic and ginger and fry for 30 seconds.
Add the dry spices, stir and add the chicken in. Stir to coat the chicken thoroughly.
Add the grains and stir to mix.
You can also add the masoor dal now, if you like, instead of after blending the haleem, as in step 7.
Add the water, salt, concentrated tomato paste, and green chillies, stir well, and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 1 hour, until the chicken and grains are done.
Using an immersion blender, pulse the cooked haleem a few times to mince the chicken and grains.
Don't overdo this stage, you don't want to end up with a stodgy, rubbery mix. Blend to get a semi fine mix, with the odd tiny shredded chicken.
You can blend the chillies or leave them whole.
Now add the red lentil (masoor dal) and 60ml water (¼ cup) and bring it back to a simmer. Stir well and leave the dal to cook for 20 minutes.
You can skip this step and add the masoor dal with the rest of the grains in step 4, if you prefer. It'll save you 20 minutes of cooking time.

Prep Work for Topping - Aromatics & Herbs

While the red lentils are cooking let's prepare our topping. Halve the red onion, and thinly slice it.
Slice the ginger into matchsticks.
Slice the garlic widthwise.
Finely chop the coriander leaves (cilantro) and mint.
Slice the green chillies.

Back to the Haleem

When the red lentils are done cooking, at about 20 minutes, check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary. You can also add more water if it's too thick for your taste.
It's now ready to be served and you can either dish it up into your chosen serving dish or leave it in the saucepan as we get the garnish ready.
Drizzle the lemon juice all over.
Leave it to rest while you get the flavoured oil and aromatic topping ready.

Topping your Haleem

Heat the oil and ghee in a frying pan on medium heat and fry the sliced onions for a good 3-5 minutes until they are brown and some of them will be crispy. Be careful not to burn them.
Reduce the heat to medium-low if some are browning too quickly.
When the onions are brown to your liking, add the garlic and ⅓ of the ginger sticks and stir for just 20 seconds - count to 20!
Pour this flavoured fat all over the haleem, along with the onions, garlic and ginger.
You can reserve some of the onions if you like, for diners to top up, if you don't fancy all of them on the haleem.
Finish off with the chopped herbs, the rest of the ginger sticks, sliced green chillies and wedges of lemon, so diners can add more lemon juice, if they want.

Notes

Haleem is a very filling dish. I've given the servings as 6-8. If one is having a small bowl of this, it may even stretch to 10. Especially if you are making it lighter.

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Equipment

Ingredients

Grains

Aromatics for Cooking the Haleem

Dry Spices

Garnish and Topping