Tweaks make Middle Eastern chicken lean and tasty
Some longtime friends were coming for dinner and I wanted to do something special. These are friends who find it fun for us to head out to a specialty market, wander around, purchase a variety of “foodie” items that catch our interest, head to cookbooks for some general guidelines for what to do with what we bought and then make dinner. Sort of a slightly friendlier twist to Food Network's show: ”Chopped.”
Looking for a recipe both challenging and delicious, I headed over to The New York Times' recipe website at cooking.nytimes.com for an out-of-the-ordinary, never-made-it-before chicken recipe, since one of my friends doesn't eat beef or pork. Melissa Clark's recipe for Middle Eastern chicken recipe caught my eye.
Besides the mouthwatering picture, Clark's sidebar about her chicken's seasoning being based on za'atar (ZAH-tahr) really revved-up my interest. Za-atar is a mixture of ingredients that can include chopped fresh oregano, sumac (more about that in a bit), ground cumin, and sesame seeds along with salt and black pepper.
Sumac is an essential spice in many Middle Eastern dishes and comes from the sumac bush, which, not surprisingly, is native to the Middle East and, fortunately, I had some in my spice cabinet.
What does sumac taste like?
It has a tart, lemony taste that is unique. If you don't have any ground sumac available (and many folks don't), a fair substitution would be ground coriander since it too has lemony essence, but with more herbal overtones.
Clark's recipe called for the fresh versions of what normally are dried herbs in her recipe. She used fresh parsley, fresh mint, fresh thyme and fresh oregano for her za'atarish flavoring.
Lucky me, all of those grew in my garden except for oregano, which a neighbor generously provided.
At the time I read the recipe I didn't think about how long it takes to clean and mince fresh herbs. Rinsing and spin-drying the herbs was easy. I learned to fairly quickly strip the leaves off herb stems by holding on to the young tip and running my fingers, somewhat tightly, backward down the stem. Usually the leaves just pop right off.
Clark's recipe requires fresh-squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest. Because the zest is the outside of the lemon, I went the extra mile and bought organic lemons, since that's where pesticide residues can reside.
Clark used three tablespoons of olive oil in her marinade, but since this was for boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which have more natural fat than chicken breasts, I trimmed that back by half.
Clark recommended using whole milk, Greek yogurt for a side sauce, which I'm sure tastes sensationally rich, but I wanted to keep the flavor up and the calories down so I went with skim milk Greek yogurt.
The aromas wafting out of my broiler had everyone nearly drooling for what was to come. The flavor profile of Clark's chicken thighs and the garlicky yogurt sauce made this chicken some of the best ever. Got some “foodie” friends? Have them over this weekend and make this for them.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.