Show off your cooking credentials with Palestine’s national dish, Musakhan. Recipe from Ottolenghi
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Makes: 2 Servings
Ingredients
500g chicken supremes(2/3 pieces)
60ml olive oil
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1 1/2tbsp sumac
1/4tsp ground cinnamon
1/4tsp ground allspice
15g pine nuts
2 red onions
2 flatbreads (thicker is better, e.g. taboon or naan)
5g parsley leaves
Greek yoghurt and lemon wedges for serving
1. Who’re you calling chicken?
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Pop your 500g chicken supremes into a bowl with, 60ml olive oil,1/2 tbsp ground cumin, 3/4tsp sumac, 1/4tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4tsp ground allspice. Massage all those wonderful flavours into the chicken then add to a baking tray and cook in the oven for 30 minutes
2. Don’t cry for me oniontina
Slice up your 2 red onions and finely chop your parsley for garnish later
Add 1tbsp of oil to a pan and toast the pine nuts until they are golden and fragrant , set them to the side, in a golden bowl to reflect their goldenness of course!
Add the remaining 30ml of olive oil to the pan along with a pinch of salt and the sliced onions
Cook these down for about 15 minutes stirring occasionally until they are soft and jammy, then add 1tbsp of sumac, 1 tsp of cumin a good pinch of black pepper and stir it all together. Welcome to sumac central, population: you.
If you are a very efficient chef (exactly like we are definitely, all of the time….), you can already start heating up your bread in a frying pan or on the grill. Lebanese bread like the one pictured is not the best option, you want something thicker like pita to absorb all the juices, spoken from the experience of eating this particular Musakhan
3. Avengers assemble!
Once your chicken is cooked, it’s time to layer up the dish. First start with a layer of the bread, half the onions, the chicken (along with any scrumptious cooking juices) and then the other half of the onions. Top all of it off with the pinenuts, parsely, 3/4 of a tsp of sumac and a good glug of olive oil
Serve with yoghurt and lemon, maybe even to break your fast for Ramadan!
Dink and sink!
Food for Thought
Lizzy says: “”
Kate says: “This was a really delicious light dinner which would also be really quick if we hadn’t had the inevitable gasp lag (when we cook together everything seems to take twice as long, somehow it took me 30 minutes to toast some pinenuts?!). I would definitely make this again, I really liked the sumacy jammy onions with the lightly spiced chicken. But next time I would definitely use a pita or thicker flatbread to absorb all the juices. 10/10“
9/10 Gasps
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