“Sayaddeyya” is Arabic for fishermen, so … Fishermen’s rice. Traditionally served with guess what? fish ofcourse.

Until today, that’s what fishermen prepare on their boat, to eat alongside their catch of fish while they’re out at sea.

It got fancy over the years, and now you can add all sorts of spices to the dish, even pine nuts if you wish. But at its very base its mainly 2 major ingredients: lots of onions and cumin.

You can have it plain, or have bits and pieces of “fishy” stuff added to it while cooking.

For this recipe I used shrimps.

 

Ingredients:

2 cups rice (rinsed well)

500 grs frozen shrimps (ofcourse you can use fresh, but the weight here refers to the frozen weight. So probably around 400 grs after defrosting)

2 large onions grated (in the picture you see 3, since they were small-ish)

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp curry powder

2 tsps cumin powder

water as per cooking instructions of your rice + 1 extra cup to allow for the cooking of the shrimps

1 soup cube

Method:

Place a little olive oil in the pot, add the grated onions, and fry while stirring frequently, until the onion is very dark, looking as if almost burned. (Don’t put your attention elsewhere while this is happening, you need to stay on top of it and keep stirring, or else the onion will burn and acquire a bitter taste.)

add the spices

add the tomato paste

add the water

add the soup cube

add the rice

cover and simmer until you can still see “some” water

add the shrimps

mix well

cover again and keep simmering until the rice is done.

Enjoy!