Spiced Maqluba With Tomatoes and Tahini Sauce

This was excellent! I followed some of the recommendations from others and added thinly sliced potato, carrots, eggplant and cauliflower to the onions and then layered them with the rice in the pan. I didn't have cardamom pods but put some of the seeds into a small cheesecloth bundle. I didn't have the right size platter for the flip and ended up with half of the pan on the counter! Will plan better next time around!

I really loved this. What a celebration of taste. I used brown rice and it took of course longer to cook and I added maybe 1.5 cups of water instead of 2 T. Will make it again!

This was delicious, but the tomatoes were thoroughly burned on the bottom. Not surprising after 5 minutes at high heat protected only by baking sheet. Any tips about that?

Is it safe to put parchment in a pan going onto a burner? Parchment paper has a heat limit specified on the box, not just for fire, but importantly, to preserve the integrity of its coating. This would worry me. Otherwise, this recipe sounds amazing, can hardly wait to try it.

Our family loves this dish. I make it several times a year. I roast and freeze our excess cherry tomatoes in the summer and pull them out mid-winter for this dish (among other things). The concentrated flavor of the roasted tomatoes is wonderful here.

I have tried the Maqluba in his book & this is my quick version. Add spices in the chicken breast. In a pan line the tomatoes, the veggies, the marinated chicken, the rice & water. Add in the spices, cover and cook. Once it’s cooked just turn the pan over it will come off easily. Always cook on medium to low heat so that it doesn’t stick. If you want a veg version just cook the lentils in the pressure cooker first instead of a pan, it cuts the time in half.

I made this for the first time for company, and it was the star of a multi-course show!! I typically make minor modifications to recipes, but have learned that Yotam's recipes are designed to be followed to the gram, and made this accordingly. As others have noted, lentils disappear, so don't fret about that. This one is a keeper!!

I would like to make this with whole grain rice. Suggestions for time adjustment, or precooking the rice?

I roasted a sliced eggplant in the oven and added it between the tomato and onion layers. Delicious!

Where to start. This is way too much work, steps, pans/dishes, and poor instruction to salvage. Flavor is good but as other cook said, it’s rice and lentils (with spices) made far more complex than it needs to be. Did not hold together at all when flipped out of too deep pot the recipe instructed. Rice on top barely cooked adequately despite adding more water, as I suspected this could happen. Way too much work for this outcome.

This is tasty, but after cooking it twice, I find it hard to get the rice to cook all the way. In the future, I think I will leave it in step 1 for longer so the rice can cook some more.

This was a hit but did not work out at all as pictured. The tomatoes (I used extra) completely disintegrated, and the dish did not "mold" as in the picture. Also, A WORD TO THE WISE: read step 4 carefully. I skimmed over the word "round", lined the whole pan with untrimmed parchment paper, started the high heat, and nearly lit my kitchen on fire! Totally my bad; don't do the same thing. Overall, a delicious but very fussy recipe. Used every pot in the kitchen to make glorified rice and lentils

Unique and interesting flavors. Needs to cooked in a skillet (as directed) rather than a deep 10 inch stainless steel pot (which I used). Mine came out with a splat because my pot was too deep. But tasted good, although it was a bit messed up, visually.

Made this twice and tweaked it to my liking the second time: Add a tablespoon of cumin, another teaspoon or so of turmeric, make the teaspoon of allspice scant, I used about an eighth a teaspoon of ground cardamom. Make sure your tomatoes are ripe and flavorful. I used granulated instead of minced garlic in the sauce, about a teaspoon or more.

My first Mahdur Jaffrey cookbook was full of the repeated note "NB: Whole spices are not meant to be eaten." I strongly encourage fans of cuisines that use whole cardamom to use it the way the recipe tells you to, and tell your diners to eat around the whole pods. Ground cardamom behaves noticeably differently, and if you want the real effect the recipe is going for, just use the pod and don't wolf your dinner! It doesn't hurt to eat the pods if you do miss pulling one, though.