What is Chicken Mandi?

Chicken Mandi is a popular authentic Yemeni dish that consists of 3 components: chicken (or any other meat), a Yemeni spice mix called "Hawaij", and rice. Sounds like a simple dish, right? Wrong! Because the authenticity is all in the cooking method! Mandi is traditionally slow cooked in an underground "oven", called a Taboon. It's basically like a big hole with lots of coal inside, and the chicken and rice are cooked inside, with the chicken on a rack on top of the rice so all the juices can drip into the pot.