Yotam Ottolenghi—an Israeli born in Jerusalem—owns five restaurants in London and contributes flavoursome recipes to the Guardian on Saturdays, with unusual Middle Eastern taste twists.
Not a great looker--but the taste...!
Ottolenghi’s Chicken is his version of the traditional Palestinian dish, M’sakhan. It is delicately flavoured with soft spices like cinnamon, allspice, and sharpened a little with sumac [dark red and lemony], enhanced with thin slices of lemon and onion–delicious to bite into–and finished off with za’atar–which is sesame seeds in a mix with oregano, thyme and other herbs.
The chicken pieces are marinaded overnight in these gentle flavours, then roasted for 40 minutes.
Garlicky yogurt sauce & Moroccan bread went well with it at the book launch. For diabetics, better to substitute whole-wheat brown pita bread or brown Basmati rice.
1 chicken–cut up into 8/10 pieces
1 lemon–sliced very thin
2 red onions–sliced very thin
2 cloves of garlic–mashed to a pulp in a pinch of salt
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoons sumac
200 ml stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons za’atar
50 gms/2 oz pine nuts
for 4/5
Combine the first 11 ingredients in a bowl and mix well together.
- Let this marinade, covered, in the fridge–preferably overnight.
- Heat the oven to 200C/400F.
- Lay the chicken pieces, skin side up, in a roasting pan and cover them with the lemon and onion marinade.
- Sprinkle over the za’atar.
- Roast in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes–the juices should run clear when you pierce a leg piece.
- In a small frying pan gently dry roast the pine nuts.
- Sprinkle them over the chicken and present the dish to the “table” before serving and enjoy the “oohs!” and “aahs!”.
- Scatter over some chopped parsley to finish, for colour, if you have some on hand.
Robin Ellis 