Hamin macaroni is a Sephardi Shabbat recipe from Jerusalem of macaroni and chicken cooked overnight to perfection. Just imagine the noodles cooking slowly in chicken fat and absorbing all the goodness. It may not be health food, but it is 100% comforting.
Hamin macaroni is part of the family of Shabbat overnight stews family of dishes from all over the Jewish diaspora, that meant to solve the issue of serving a hot meal of shabbat while keeping the Kashrut laws of not cooking after Shabbat starts. The solution is to start cooking Friday afternoon and continue the cooking process on a very low heat overnight until it is ready to be served on Shabbat.
Hamin macaroni
Course: Main courseCuisine: Jewish, Sephardi, IsraeliDifficulty: Medium6
servings30
minutes16
hours16
hours30
minutesHamin macaroni is a Sephardi Shabbat recipe from Jerusalem of macaroni and chicken cooked overnight to perfection.
Bucatini is a long spaghetti with a hollow center, and is the preferred pasta for this dish.
INGREDIENTS
1 lb. bucatini or thick spaghetti
Kosher salt
Black pepper
3 lb. chicken thighs and/or drumsticks, bones in, skin on
1 tablespoon vegetable or corn oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ cup hot water
4 golden potatoes, peeled, sliced to ½ inch slices
6 eggs
DIRECTIONS
- Oven to 200 degrees.
- Cook bucatini in salted water according to package instructions, drain, keep in a bowl.
- Generously salt and pepper chicken. Put oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and brown chicken on both sides to a nice golden-brown color. You may need to do it in two batches. Transfer chicken to a bowl.
- Add onion to pot and sauté for about 6 minutes, you may need to reduce the heat if the onion crowns too quickly. Add tomato paste and spices to onion, stir and cook for another minute. Add ½ cup hot water to the pot to and scrape the bottom to release the fat and flavor. Remove pot from heat, pour onion and liquid on cooked bucatini, add 1 teaspoon kosher salt and mix well.
- Line bottom of pot with potato slices, sprinkle with salt. Top with about ¾ of the bucatini, pressing them down. Arrange chicken on the noodles, arranging eggs between them, and top with the rest of the bucatini with all its liquid. Cover tightly with aluminum foil (make sure the aluminum foil does not touch the noodles. If it does, first line the noodles with parchment paper and only then with the foil). Then cover with lid. Bake overnight or for 6-8 hours. Let rest for 20 minutes before serving.
Shalom Vered, I have 2 questions. First can I use chicken breast instead of legs ( my husband and children like only chicken breast ) ? And second, can I slow cook it ? Toda.
Hi Mihaela, thanks for your question!
First, as long as it’s a skin on bone in chicken breast, you should be fine. Make sure the pot you’re using is very tightly closed, so the chicken will not dry out.
As for the slow cooker, the answer is complicated. The slow cooking setting in instant pots have a very low temperature that’s too low for making cholent. So I’ve never tried hamin macaroni. But I think actually that it will be fine because it doesn’t need to brown nicely like cholent does.
The old fashion slow cooker usually reach higher temp so that will work for sure.
Let me know how it worked!
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