Country 13: Bahrain - Sweet Muhammar Rice and Spicy Baked Fish

I am looking forward to the day where I get to a country that I can start ranting and raving about how much I know it and how much time I've spent there and how wonderful the people and the cuisine is, or how my experiences changed me as a person, or ANYTHING like that. So far in this project I have spent less than 48 hours in any of the countries I've written / cooked / eaten - and that 48 hours is split between TWO different countries: Austria, and Australia.

Unfortunately, this still remains the case, and won't be changing until Bosnia and Herzegovina (thank goodness it starts with B... Yet it's still NINE countries away from here).

There are days where I feel like I'm fairly well travelled. And then I think about it a little more and realise well actually, I've covered New Zealand fairly extensively, and I've done quite a lot of Europe... which is the smallest continent on the planet. And I did a road trip in California, and a tour in Egypt. But that's it. So actually, I haven't done that much travelling at all. I guess with Europe I do feel like there are quite a lot of differences in each country (and certainly in the cuisines!) but at the end of the day, I've covered extremely little of the world.

The Kingdom of Bahrain.

Bahrain is one of those countries that I forget exists (sorry). It's just so teeny tiny! And I know next to nothing about it.

Some facts that I have now discovered about Bahrain (sourced from Wikipedia):

1. Bahrain is not actually connected to the mainland. It's an archipelago made of 33 natural islands, and 51 man-made islands.  It's connected to Saudi Arabia by a 25km causeway. 
2. It is 780 square kilometres, and has a population of over 1.2 million people. 
3. While the first oil in the Persian Gulf was discovered here, Bahrain developed one of the first post-oil economies of the Gulf, investing into the banking and tourism sectors. 
4. The word bahrayn is the dual form of the Arabic bahr, so Bahrain roughly translates to "the two seas," although it's not quite known which two seas this refers to. 
5. Bahrain has a history that dates back to four millenia BC.
6. Most of the cuisine is a blend of Arabic, Persian, Indian, African, and European, due to the influence of the various cultures that surround the country. 

Before the fish went into the oven

Muhammar - Bahrainian Sweet Rice

The dish I decided to cook today is called muhammar, a very sweet rice dish that is made with sugar, butter, rice, rose water, cloves, and saffron. By itself, it's actually oversweet, a bit like my ducana I made for Antigua. However, like the Antigua dish, Bahrainian muhammar is served with fish. I think actually traditionally it is made with dates rather than sugar, but the recipe I was following uses sugar instead. 

Common fish found off the coast of Bahrain include tuna, sea bream, barracuda, and grouper. The recipe I adapted suggested using any white fish, and while I was grocery shopping for rose water and saffron, I came across some full sea bass which is my partner's favourite fish, so I decided to give that a shot. 

I was intrigued with this recipe, but it turned out absolutely delicious. The spices of the fish blended perfectly with the sweetness of the rice. My partner was complaining that the rice was too sweet, until I told him that he needed to have both the rice and the fish and the stuffing on the same fork, rather than having a mouthful of one and then a mouthful of the other. Once you mix it all up and have it all together, it's delicious. 

Mum and dad will be proud - I even ate the tomatoes with this dish, and it wasn't terrible. In fact, it gave just the right amount of extra tang. 

I always feel like the weakest part of my blogs is where I actually describe the taste of the meal that I cook, which probably shouldn't be the case. I will aim to improve! For now, I think you should just cook it the way that I did, and then decide for yourself.

Actually, on that note, I think any Arabic flavours would work well with the fish. I did consider using Baharat spices, which is a blend of paprika, coriander, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and a whole lot of other stuff. But I opted to follow the recipe that was advised, and it was beautiful. I would encourage you to pick and choose your own recipes, but try this one first!

The range of spices and flavours I used in this dish

Let's talk saffron for a minute.

Saffron is expensive. Apparently, a gram of saffron costs more than a gram of gold. 

I don't know why, so I googled it. 

It's extremely pricey because of how labour intensive it is to cultivate. It's a spice that originates from the crocus flower, which is tough to grow in the first place, and has three golden threads in the centre of it. These threads need to be plucked carefully by hand, and then dried. Apparently, about 200,000 saffron threads are picked from 70,000 crocus flowers, for about 450 grams worth of the dried stuff we can get off the shelves. It takes about 40 hours of labour to pick 150,000 flowers. 

To be honest with you, apart from the colouring that it gives to meals, I'm not really convinced about saffron. I don't know if it has a particular flavour that it gives a meal. I know for sure it turned my muhammar yellow, but apart from that I don't know if it did much else. 

Saffron is used in a huge variety of dishes. Paella from Spain, Italian risotto, French bouillabaise. Biryani, tagine, and seafood in general. Cleopatra supposedly bathed in saffron... Go figure. 

I do know that my pilau rice I order from my local Indian takeaway uses saffron. Maybe I'll ask them about it when I collect it next time. All I know is that it is ridiculously expensive, for a miniscule amount. I'm lucky that we had some in our spice cupboard already, given to my partner for a Christmas present so he could make homemade Spanish paella from scratch. 

Next time I need a bit of yellow in my dish, I'll consider using tumeric instead. 

The rice (only leftovers after I'd dished up)

After the fish came out the oven

Sweet Muhammar Rice and Spicy Baked Fish

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the rice:

• 1 cup rice, rinsed and drained
• 1/8 teaspoon of saffron threads
• 1 tablespoon rosewater
• 3 cloves
• 3 cardamom pods, contents only (if you don't have any, use 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon instead)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt

For the fish:

• 2 smallish full white fish, scaled and gutted
• 1 tablespoon garam masala
• 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more if you like it spicy)
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 lime, zest only
• 1/4 cup fresh dill (or less if you're not a big fan, like myself)
• Olive oil
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 1/4 green capsicum, diced
• 1/4 red capsicum, diced

Instructions

NOTE: I would steep the rosewater first, then an hour later start on the fish, then with 20-30 minutes remaining on the fish, I'd start on the rice. 

For the muhammar:

1. An hour or two before starting to cook, mix the saffron, cloves, cardamom (or cinnamon powder) and rosewater. Leave to steep. 
2. Add rice, sugar, butter, cinnamon stick and rosewater mix to two cups of boiling water. Cover and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked. 
3. Serve. 

For the fish:

1. Preheat the oven to 140 C.
2. Place fish on a greased baking tray. Rub the cayenne pepper, turmeric, garam masala and half the salt onto the outsides of the fish.
3. Mix the chopped onion, garlic, dill, capsicums, chilli, lime zest and remaining salt together. Stuff the stomach of the fish with this mix and if there are leftovers, scatter it around the fish. 
4. Splash with some olive oil and place in the oven for half an hour.
5. Top fish with sliced tomatoes. Turn the oven up to 190 C and bake for another 30 minutes. While this is baking.  get started on the muhammar, above.
6. Place under a grill for a few minutes to crisp the skin (I forgot this step and it was still good!) 
7. Remove from oven and serve with the muhammar.