Iraqi Shabbat Chicken

Iraqi Shabbat Chicken
Ingredients

# 1 whole stewing chicken
# 300 g tomato puree
# 300 g okra
# 1 lemon
# 500 g basmati rice
# 2 onions
# 1 liter water

Directions

1. Chop onions and place in a large oven casserole dish adding tomato puree and about 1 litre of water.
2. Place chicken on top of onions and put into a pre-heated oven at about 150C for about 3 1/2 hours.
3. When cooked, remove chicken and place to one side.
4. Take half the juices with the puree and onions and put into a saucepan. Add the okra, salt, pepper and lemon juice and bring to the boil, simmer gently for 30 minutes. If tinned okra is used, drain well before use.
5. Wash Basmati rice throughly and add to the rest of the juices in the casserole dish, add some more water to just cover and place back into the oven to cook for a further 1 hour.
6. When the rice is cooked, portion up the chicken and add to the top of the rice and cook for a further 1/2 hour.
7. The rice is now a wonderful reddy/golden colour with the taste of the chicken infused.
8. Serve altogether with the Okra sauce.