My aunt Phoebe’s late husband, Uncle Samy, was a passionate cook who had a knack for turning the simplest ingredients into a meal. This five-ingredient chicken was one of his signature dishes that my cousins and I always looked forward to.
The key to perfecting this dish is to make sure the onions are cooked down and caramelized to a deep golden brown, while being careful not to burn them. Just watch and toss the onions around, managing the heat until they are ready.
Here I serve it over a big salad with blocks of feta, bread, and a bowl of Torshi (page 261). If Uncle Samy saw it this way, he’d teasingly say I ruined it with all the embellishments, and we’d have a big laugh. Every time I make this chicken, I think of him.
My Moroccan friend Mehdi first introduced me to chermoula as a marinade for seafood, but I love it on chicken too. It wraps the meat with the soft distinct flavor of cooked cilantro and the gentle warmth of sweet paprika. This is a great picnicky recipe to double up for a summertime crowd, since chicken thighs (or hindquarters) are very forgiving for the busy home cook. I like to use my wood-burning pizza oven outdoors, but an indoor oven works just fine.
Citrus and oregano make this grilled chicken taste sophisticated. It is inspired by my mom’s traditional pollo en oregano, which is usually fried. (You can find that recipe in our first cookbook Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.)
Carrots, celery, and onion are the base for any good comfort meal. Using rotisserie chicken puts this meal on the table in under thirty minutes!
There’s nothing new about marinating chicken with herbs and citrus, but the addition of fish sauce takes this tried-and-true technique to something seriously next level. The fish sauce works its way deep into the chicken to impart its funky, salty flavor all the way through. This recipe also shows off the special relationship between fish sauce and sugar (in this case, honey) and how they work together to create caramelization without tipping the scales of flavor into something too sweet. If you’d rather not mess with a whole chicken, feel free to swap in chicken thighs or breasts.
Chicken salad may seem retro, but this one is positively medieval. It’s a timely resurrection of a much-loved dish, described as the perfect summertime fare by Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi (poet, musician and cook) who devised this barida dish in the ninth century. The idea behind bawarid – cold dishes – is a mixture of meat or vegetables, brought together by a sauce. Timeless. Much like the sandwich… Many believe the sandwich to have been invented in 18th-century England by Lord Sandwich, however, medieval records turn back the clock. At ancient Persian banquets, you’d be served a sort of canapé called bazmaward or awsat, which was essentially thin flatbread (but not always) filled with roast meat, such as the following baridas, rolled up and sliced into pin-wheels. Today, we call these aarayes in parts of the Middle East. Bazmaward make for wonderful snacks or finger food to decorate the table with.
I absolutely love the flavor and aroma of real Mexican mole. It has an exotic quality to it from the nuts, chiles, spices, and bitter Mexican chocolate. The result is a deeply complex sauce that is rich, multidimensional, and unforgettable. I know the ingredient list looks long and intimidating, but I think you’ll agree that the results are worth the effort. Save this recipe for a special dinner with family or friends. I like to serve this dish over steamed rice with plenty of fresh cilantro and Spicy Marinated Onions.
The secret to a good Thai larb is the roasted rice powder, which adds texture and also thickens the dressings, helping them to stick to the chicken. Served with some raw vegetables, it makes for a great light dinner. You could also try this with pork, beef or turkey mince.
A big tamal (or tamalón) wrapped in banana leaves and baked in the oven is practical because it saves cooks the trouble of wrapping dozens of individual tamales. It is also a thing of beauty—a spectacular way to showcase the elegance of an ancestral food cooked in the embrace of banana leaves and unveiled at the table.
In the summer you can use fresh cherries, pitted, instead of dried ones.