Palough! September 3, 2011
Posted by ummibraheem in Recipes.Tags: chicken, pakistani, rice
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I know I don’t do many recipe posts…this isn’t really a recipe blog. But so many of my friends have asked for the palough (rice and meat dish) recipe that my sister in law gave, so here it is 
I actually measured everything out while I was cooking so I could give exact measurements and I took pictures.
It’s funny I got it from my indian sister in law when the recipe is pakistani I’ve actually made palough before, but my chicken always came out hard and dry and the flavor was just meh. But the way Muryum taught it, the rice is nice and tender and the chicken is too. And the flavor – yum! It’s only seasoned with three things: onions, whole garam masala and salt. But it takes time to make.
Ingredients:
- 2 big onions, sliced
- 1 1/2 cups oil
- 1.5 – 2 pounds chicken
- whole garam masala (approx. 7 cloves, 15 black pepper balls, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 tsp zeera, 6 cardamoms)
- 3 cups uncooked basmati rice
- 4.5 cups water (the rice:water ratio is always 1:1.5)
- 4 tsp salt or to taste
How to Make It
The thing about this recipe is the amount of onions and oil you use. I didn’t really realize how much the oil was until I measured it out before pouring. The onions were quite big as well. To give you an idea, this is how big they look beside a 2 cup measuring cup.
1. Heat oil in an oven safe pot over medium heat and add onions. You have to cook them for a long time. A very long time. You can’t tell from my pictures, but the onions reduced a lot and they were a nice and colored light brown. I actually timed it, and it took my onions 25 minutes to go from this
to this
2. Add the garam masala and stir about 2 minutes. (Don’t add the salt yet!)
3. Add the chicken and stir until brown all over. Cover and cook about 15 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 right about now. Remove the lid. The liquid in the pot will look watery. The oil will not have separated yet. If you’re desi, you should know what I’m talking about Cook it on medium high heat until it “dries” as the aunties say, or until the oil becomes clear once again. This takes some time, and you have to keep stirring. If you try to multi task like I did, your chicken will start sticking to the bottom and you’ll have to change pots :/ So this is what the chicken should eventually like:
There will be a lot of oil. Don’t freak out
5. Add the water and salt to the pot now. Stir and taste the saltiness of the water. The salt flavor should be pretty strong (not disgusting, but you should be able to taste the saltiness). I added 4 tsp to my 4.5 cups water and it tasted fine. Remember, I didn’t add any salt to the chicken or onions previous to this. Put on high heat and bring to a boil.
6. When the water comes to a boil, add the rice. This is the brand of Basmati Rice I use.
Keep the heat on high and just wait until the water boils down to about the same level as the rice. It’ll still be very wet, but you should see the water bubbling around the rice.
7. Now put the lid back on and put the pot into your preheated oven for 20 minutes.
All done! I know I should’ve plated it and made it look pretty, but I’m not really a cooking blogger… with three kids, I don’t have time for all that 
alhamdulillah So here it is, straight out of the oven:
Trust in Allah September 3, 2011
Posted by ummibraheem in Companions, Hadith, Women and Islam.Tags: Aisha
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I really like this story. The video is really awesome too, mashaAllah, but the background music/noise is just too much. Worth your time to listen to, though
The Beginning…of Shirk September 3, 2011
Posted by ummibraheem in Islam, The Prophets.Tags: first shirk, nuh
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Bismillah. This is a continuation of our Prophets’ series. So far we’ve done Adam, the story of the two brothers Qabil and Habil, Sheeth and Idrees.
Now, generations later, we see the beginnings of shirk. This is before the time of Nuh (Noah). We are going to mention how the evil of shirk began.
Ten Qarn
In a hadith narrated by Ibn ‘Abbaas, the Prophet (S) said: “There were ten Qarn between Adam and Noah, all living according to Islam.” A qarn is a period of time. It can either mean a century or a generation. If it is ten centuries, then we know that is 1,000 years, or a millenium. If it means ten generations, then that amount of time could be much more than a 1,000 years, because we know that at that time people’s life spans were much longer.
So between Adam and Nuh, ten qarn were Muslim, and then disbelief slowly crept in.
How did it happen? Ibn ‘Abbaas says (and this is his opinion mentioned in Bukhaari), the descendants of Adam started to slowly lose their religion and began committing sins, but they still believed in tawheed – the unity of Allah. Ignorance was spreading amongst them. And the righteous amongst them were few.
Shaytaan came to them and said, “When these righteous men pass away, you will have no one to remind you of Allah subhaana wa ta’aala and about ‘ibaadah. You will have no one to give you naseehah and advice. So how about, when they pass away, you erect some statues in their memorial to remind you about ‘ibaadah?” Because these righteous men used to give them naseehah and advice. They followed the advice of shaytaan, thinking that it was good advice. They erected these idols.
Then, shaytaan left them alone. Look at how patient he is with his plan. He left them until they forgot why these statues were built. Generation after generation came and the people forgot why these were erected. Shaytaan came to them and told them, “Why don’t you worship these statues?” And that is how shirk started.
Allah talks about these 5 idols in the Qur’an: wadd, suwa’, yaghuth, ya’ooq and nasr. (see 71:23) Ibn ‘Abbaas says that these were righteous men, whom the people of Nuh started to worship as their idols.
To Remember Him
In the Stories of the Prophets, there is a story mentioning how shirk first began. It says that Wadd was a pious man, loved by his people. But when he died, the people converged around his grave in Babylon and were overwhelmed by grief. When Iblis saw their sorrow caused by his death, he came to them disguised as a man and said: “I have seen your grief on the death of this man, so shall I make a statue like him which could be erected in your place of assembly, thus you may remember him by it?” They said, “Yes.” So he made a statue like him. They erected it up in their assembly, and so they remembered him.
When Iblis observed their keenness to remmber him, he suggetsed, “Shall I build a statue of him in th ehomes of eveyrone of you, so that each one of you could remember him in his home?” They agreed. So he made a statue like him for every family. Then, they accepted this and began to remember him by it.
The generation of their children saw what their fathers did with it (for their remembrance). However, the children’s children came and they had no idea of how their fathers remembered them, and so gradually they took it as a god, worshipping it instead of Allah. So the first one to be worhipped instead of Allah was wadd.
Look at the tactics of shaytaan. He didn’t come directly to the people after the righteous died and say, “Oh, look, those pious men are dead, so you can worship idols now.” He had a very long term master evil-plan. He was patient, and look at how his patience paid off.
Personal reflection — we can learn from this that we too should think long term. We shouldn’t be satisfied with our children carrying on the bare minimum of Islam. We should want them to know more than we know inshaAllah. The best defense is a good offense
Also, something else that occurred to me – we often don’t see the wisdom in why Allah forbade us certain things or why we should avoid doubtful matters. That is because our vision is very limited to the now of our own lives.
The First Messenger
Nuh was the first messenger of Allah to the people of the world. And this is mentioned in the authentic hadith of Shafa’a. [see Bukhaari , 6/60/3 and there are many others in Bukhaari and in Muslim as well.] People will go to Nuh and tell him, “You are the first messenger of Allah to the people of the world.” We will inshaAllah begin his story next time.
