Muhammar is a popular Bahraini dish made with sugar, honey, rose water, and cardamom. It is very sweet and pairs well as a side with fish or can even be enjoyed eaten alone.
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Who knew that rice could taste so much like dessert!? This rice from Bahrain has me lickin’ my lips because holy moly, it’s delicious.
The best part about this rice is how quick and easy it is! About a half an hour total of prep/cook time and you have a delicious and incredibly unique Bahraini dish on your hands. Up until this point, most of the flavors in the dish (rose water, cardamom, etc) have been used to flavor many of the desserts on this blog. Adding these spices to a side dish for dinner was an interesting twist.
Experimenting with Saffron
Saffron has officially made its first appearance on The Foreign Fork blog! And it hurt my heart a little bit. Saffron is beautiful and flavorful and absolutely delicious. But would you believe that I paid $20 for a teeny, tiny little jar of it?! The struggles of cooking a meal from every country in the world– my spice cabinet has cost me an outrageous amount of money.
Still, though, if you can afford to splurge and you’re feelin’ fancy, put this jar of saffron in your cart. Now that it’s in my kitchen, I’ve had such fun experimenting with what other dishes can benefit from a good pinch of saffron (stay tuned for my Shandesh from Bangladesh… Saffron is a star!)
Variations of Muhammar
For other variations of this Muhammar, you can substitute either all brown sugar or all honey (instead of ¼ cup of each). You can use butter instead of ghee. You can also feel free to add other spices and flavorings to the rice dish like molasses or cloves.
If you liked this rice dish, try out some of my other favorite rice dishes like Pigeon Peas and Rice from The Bahamas or Rice with Vermicelli from Armenia! If you make this recipe, leave a comment on this post telling me how it went! And, as always, share a photo on Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #TheForeignFork and tag @TheForeignFork!
Muhammar (Bahrain)
Ingredients
- 2 cups Basmati Rice , washed
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ + ¼ cup ghee
- 2 tsp ground cardamom
- ¼ tsp saffron
- 2 Tbsp rose water
- 1 Tbsp salt
Instructions
- Mix saffron into rose water
- Boil 6 cups of water on the stove in a large saucepan. Once boiling, add rice. Mix well, then cook for about 8 minutes, uncovered. Rice should only be about half cooked. Drain.
- Heat ⅓ cup of ghee in the saucepan. Add rice.
- Pour sugar, honey, cardamom, saffron, and rose water over the rice and mix.
- Use the handle end of a wooden spoon to put three holes in the rice mixture. Coat paper towels in water and lay around the rim of the pot. Once the lid is on, this will create steam to help cook the rice.
- Cover and cook the rice on a very low heat for 10-15 minutes. Do not stir.
- Transfer to serving platter and pour ¼ cup of melted ghee over the rice. Pieces of the rice should be crunchy! Enjoy!
Meghan Hallewell says
This rice took me a minute to get used to because you don’t expect rice to be sweet but it was soo good, and I went back for seconds (maybe even thirds!) I’ll definitely make this one for my boys!
Alexandria Drzazgowski says
It definitely is different than most rice dishes, but that’s what makes me love it so much! I’m glad you felt the same way… Let me know what your boys think when you make it!