Bring 2 l salted water to the boil in a wide saucepan. Peel onions and cut them into 2 quarters. Wash the chicken, dab dry, remove skin. Put onion quarters and legs into the pot, bring to the boil, simmer gently over medium heat for about 1 hour.
Wash the rice three times with plenty of water, drain in a sieve. Boil the rice with 4 tablespoons of oil in plenty of salted water, simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain rice briefly in a sieve. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and rice to the pot. Close tightly with a lid wrapped with a tea towel. Cook over low heat for about 45 minutes.
Wash and clean the cucumbers and tomatoes. Peel the cucumbers. Dice cucumbers, tomatoes and 1 onion. Mix with 4 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 tablespoons oil, season with salt and pepper.
Peel and finely chop the garlic. Cut 1 onion into fine slices Remove chicken, measure 200 ml broth. Stir in half saffron and the rest lemon juice. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan. Sauté onion and garlic. Sprinkle with 1⁄4 tsp. turmeric. Add tomato paste, stock and legs. Season with salt and pepper. Stew in the closed pan for about 15 minutes. While doing so, repeatedly coat the legs with the saffron stock.
Wash barberries, chop pistachios. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan. Steam berries and sugar for about 3 minutes. Mix the rest of the saffron and 2 tbsp. hot water. Add to the berries. Layer berries and rice one after the other in a ring cake tin (2 1⁄2 l contents). Turn out on a plate and sprinkle with pistachios. Arrange the chicken and sprinkle with parsley.
The small sour berries are known in our region under the name sour thorn. If you like, you can replace them with dried cranberries.