Baked Saffron Yogurt Rice with Spinach

Tonight's dinner concludes my cooking from Iran. I really enjoyed all of the recipes I made this week! For tonight's dinner, I chose a rice dish. So many of the dishes in Iran are based on rice. I chose this one because I love spinach and wanted to make a dish with chicken. This was a little time consuming to make if made as written, so I took a few shortcuts. The rice tasted great, so I don't think my short cuts interfered with the integrity of the dish.
I halved this recipe and made it with only chicken breasts.

Baked Saffron Yogurt Rice with Spinach

Najmieh Batmanglij

1 chicken, cut up

1 onions, peeled and sliced

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 1/2 c. plain yogurt

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp. saffron dissolved in 1/4 c. hot water

3 lbs. spinach, washed

1 c. ghee (omitted)

3 c. pitted prunes
2 c. basmati rice (I used organic brown basmati rice)

1. Preheat oven to 350. In a large baking dish, combine meat with one onion, salt, turmeric, pepper and garlic. Cover and bake for 1 hour. Remove and cool. (I omitted this step)

2. In a bowl, beat yogurt, egg yolk, half the saffron water, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Marinate meat in this mixture for 8 hours (I put the raw chicken breast cubes in this mixture).

3. Chop spinach, steam to remove bitterness (I used baby spinach, so I omitted this step).

4. In a large skillet, brown onions in butter, add spinach and prunes, cook over low for 3 minutes.

5. Rinse rice in 2 c. of warm water 5 times.

6. Bring 8 c. water to a boil, add 2 tbsp. salt. Add rice, boil for 6 minutes.

7. Add rice to the chicken mixture, mix well.

8. Preheat oven to 350.

9. Oil/Butter a baking dish. Add rice mixture spreading across the bottom layer and up the sides. Add spinach and prunes. Top with rice mixture.

10. Place in oven and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

11. Remove from baking dish by inverting onto a plate, or spoon out of the dish. The bottom rice will create a nice crust.