[Contents]

1 large fish (weighing about 2 Ibs.)

1 cup olive oil

2 cups uncooked rice

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

Salt

Lemon juice

Water

Clean fish, sprinkle with salt and refrigerate for several hours. Fry fish in olive oil until well cooked. Remove the fish and fry the chopped onions in the same oil well browned. Bone the fried fish, reserving the cooked fillets. Add the head, bones and skin to the fried onions and cook with four cups of water in the pressure cooker for 15 minutes, or for a longer time in an open pan. Strain the broth, discarding solids and reserving the fish broth. Boil the rice (which has been soaked in hot water for 30 minutes) in the fish broth using 1-4 cups of broth for each cup of rice. Adjust salt. Simmer the rice on a low fire so that most of the broth will be absorbed. Meanwhile, butter a one-quart mold and arrange sauteed, blanched almonds and pine nuts in it. Spoon cooked rice into the mold. Unmold onto a serving platter. Garnish with large pieces of the fried fish. Serve lukewarm or cold. Serves 6 persons.

Some of the broth may be flavored with a few drops of lemon and served on the side as a sauce for this dish. Crisp radishes are a splendid accompaniment.


(From Food from the Arab World Marie Karam Khayat and Margaret Clark Keatinge, Khayat's, Beirut 1959)