Do you know what the hardest recipe is to find online? Chicken Ghallaba. I found one recipe for it after I found other people who were also searching for it online, and they weren’t having any luck either!
Last winter I discovered this dish after eating at a Lebanese restaurant for the first time. I fell in love with this dish but wanted to make it fit the 6-Week Body Makeover plan, which was why I was so fervently searching for it online. 😉
So, I found one Chicken Ghallaba recipe and I altered it to make it plan friendly. It was super easy because I just took out the olive oil and the salt. You could leave in the olive oil if you aren’t following the 6WBMO and it would still be a very healthy dish to make at home. Actually I should mention that there are 2 recipes listed at that link. I made the first one that ends right before the instructions for the rice and noodles.
What was so exciting about making this dish was that I could not figure out what the base of the sauce was when I ate it in the restaurant. It turned out it was garlic and lemon juice, that’s it. When I put that in the pan to brown it I immediately smelled the Chicken Ghallaba that I’d had in the restaurant – how cool is that!
The recipe does call for sumac, a spice that I had a hard time finding at first until I realized that I just needed to hop on over to an Indian or Arabic grocery store. You can also find it online or at Cost Plus World Market as a blend. The problem with the blend is that you aren’t going to be following the recipe exactly as it’s written, but if you’re good with that then you’ll do fine – I’m someone that needs to follow the recipe because I’m not a born chef.
You know what the neatest thing is about these meals that I eat? As long as they are plan friendly and I’m using portion control and eating on schedule, you can actually lose weight eating like this. This sure isn’t a diet and I love the food I eat. Besides the fact that it keeps me off of the addictive ingredients like sugar and flour because they aren’t a part of the program.
Enjoy the recipe!
Yep, I love Lebanese food and could eat it every day too! 🙂 And it’s good for you too!
Im not Lebanese. But i do love the countries food. Except this dish is a little bit hot and spicy for me.
Andrew
I must be stupid, I can’t see where the recipe is ! You make me really want to make it! 🙁
@Lisa, yeah, I just love this one!
@Andrew, if you wanted to you could cut back on the cajon pepper and see how that tastes to you.
@kristin, hey, you’re not stupid! 😉 You can either click on the link in the 3rd paragraph of my article, or just click here. The recipe starts right there when you click on the link – you’ll see “Chicken Ghallaba” and underneath that “yields one serving”. Then the recipe follows.
I don’t make the part of the recipe that starts with “rice and noodles”.