Hassan’s One‑Pot Chicken Kabsa: Quick, Flavorful Middle‑Eastern Feast

And so began the problems of physical fragility. The cripplingly inadequate and injury-provoking cheap Chinese replacement part that we had finally resorted to fitting to my bicycle, Winston, in Amman had done its worst. The danger of putting too much pressure through an already weakened knee, combined with all of the weight we were carrying, had finally been realised. Three days after leaving the capital, and after some unbeatable wild camping in the spectacular Jordanian desert, we limped somewhat pathetically into the Southern Jordanian port of Aquaba.

As we were waiting to board the ferry that would take us across the Red Sea and onto that huge milestone of African soil a certain Hassan wandered up and asked us what we were up to. People generally stared in disbelief and found it hard to grasp the nature of our trip, not to mention the status of our sanity – surely we can’t be cycling across multiple countries out of choice – and this moment was no exception to the common reaction of bewilderment…

Hassan looked upon us with unreserved pity and decided quite naturally that he needed to try and alleviate our obvious suffering. He immediately asked if we needed a lift to Cairo. He and his 18-wheeler frozen goods truck were headed that way. It would take three days and he had enough supplies for us all. He said that he had entire empty freezer container where we could store our bikes and which would double up as our bedroom. He kindly said he had a couple of wooden crate palettes that we could sleep on during the night. He also promised that he wouldn’t lock us in and turn on the freezer. How could we ever turn down such a generous offer?

This solution of course made perfect sense to him; and due to unfortunate circumstances, also to us. However, we sat deliberating for a while…

…what would this mean for the nature of the trip and our objectives?
Would this be somehow detrimental to our journey? This whole adventure had never been about dogmatically cycling every kilometre, it had always been about maximising every opportunity and experience. Given the state of my knee, the decision soon became a forgone conclusion. We had become firmly set on living the life of a trans-continental truck driver.

This recipe was taught to us by the wonderful Hassan in an impromptu trucker’s rest stop in the middle of the Sinai Desert. We had just parked up for the night in between two mosques when Hassan proudly states that he is going to cook us his own special version of the very popular chicken Kabsa dish.

Cook, here? In the truck? Where?

Hidden below this great behemoth of a vehicle, and completely unbeknown to us, was Hassan’s little pop-down kitchen, complete with a decidedly unstable gas stove, a battered old kettle, a spice and vegetable draw, a cool box, and finally Hassan’s pride and joy: his beloved pressure cooker.

In between long drags of his ever-stoked shisha pipe, Hassan would chat endlessly in his wonderfully broken English about all and anything that crossed his mind. We sat and listened and pretended we understood all that he was saying. A gregarious, giving, intelligent man; it was a true privilege to be taught and aided by such a colourful character. Hassan helped and entertained us through a particularly difficult and frustrating stage of our journey, and he never asked for anything in return. Yet another fleeting guardian that made our progress possible.

Ingredients (serves 4)