Sumac chicken with flatbread

Picture by Steve Shanahan

First published Canberra Times Newspaper 22 April 2015.

You suspect that you‘re on a winner when your dinner guests go unusually quiet, and the only thing that fills the conversational void is the clang of cutlery on plates.  Confirmation comes when your guests finally break their silence to ask for a second helping.

Tender chicken pieces cooked in caramelised onion and spiked with the tartness of sumac make a perfectly messy finger food when partnered with home made flatbread.  Add a salad and bingo, a complete and easy meal.  This dish can also be presented as a pulled chicken flatbread slider.

While the recipe isn’t difficult or particularly complex, all the flavour components work together seamlessly. It’s as simple as that.  

Don’t be intimidated by the quantity of sumac required in the recipe. This spice provides the unique piquancy to the dish, so distinctive in Turkish and Middle Eastern food.  Sumac can be purchased at delis or supermarkets, and sold fresh in quantity at the Nut Shoppe at Fyshwick Markets.

Flatbread

1 ½ cups plain flour, extra for rolling dough

1 tsp salt

1tsp sugar

¾ cup water, warmed

1 ½ tsp dry yeast

Chicken

1 large chicken, quartered

ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

½ cup ground sumac

1 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 large yellow onions, minced finely in a food processor

1 tbsp honey

1 small chilli, chopped finely

½ cup chicken stock

1 tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup slivered or flaked almonds

Combine and mix the flour and salt together in a bowl and set aside. Combine the water, sugar and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, firstly mixing together lightly by hand. Allow the yeast mixture to sit for about ten minutes to develop foam on the surface. After the foam has developed, turn the stand mixer to a low speed, and slowly add the flour and salt, mixing until a dough forms and the mixture pulls together into a mass. This should take about three to four minutes.

Form the dough into a ball and cover the mixer bowl with cling wrap. Leave in a warm place until doubled in size, about one hour.

Wet your hands first before dividing the dough into two balls. Place the balls on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Cover the balls with a damp, clean tea towel and set aside for about forty-five minutes.

In a large bowl, toss the chicken quarters with half of the olive oil, 3 tbsp of the sumac, half each of the allspice and cinnamon and half of the minced onions. Add a good pinch of pepper and salt and set aside to marinate for about half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220C. Heat a large non-stick frypan over medium high heat and add the chicken quarters, cooking until browned on both sides, about six to eight minutes. Transfer the chicken pieces to an open ovenproof dish or pan, skin side up. Pour over the chicken stock, and place in the oven for thirty to forty minutes to cook. If the chicken is browning too quickly, place some aluminium foil loosely across the top of the pan. The chicken should be tender and pulling from the bone when done. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the chicken pieces to a plate to keep warm and cover with aluminium foil. Save the pan drippings in a separate small bowl. 

Add the remaining oil to the frypan and place over a medium heat. Add the remaining onions and cook until golden brown, this should take about twenty minutes. Stir in the remaining sumac, allspice and cinnamon, also adding the chopped chilli, honey, salt and pepper to taste. Lower heat slightly and continue to cook for another few minutes, until the mixture is dark and pasty. Transfer the onion paste to a dish.

Wipe the frypan clean with paper towel and melt the butter over medium to high heat. Add the almonds and cook until golden, about three minutes.

Increase the oven temperature to 220C. Working with one dough ball at a time, on a floured benchtop, roll the dough into a thin disk, about twenty-four centimetres across. Perfect circles aren’t required, rustic shapes are the order of the day here. Transfer to an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush the dough with the reserved pan drippings and spread half the onion paste over the dough, leaving a thin border around the edge. Repeat the process with the second ball of dough. Bake until the bread is puffed and golden, about ten minutes. To serve, cut the flatbread into wedges and place on four plates. Arrange the chicken over the flatbread, sprinkle with the almonds and drizzle with any remaining pan juices.

Serve with a parsley, tomato and onion salad adding a touch of mint and figs if in season. 

Smoking with Broadbeans

Smoked Lamb with smashed broadbean and spiced pumpkin salad

Photos by Steve Shanahan

Apologies in advance are probably in order here, as I inflict the well worn café and restaurant mantra of fresh, local, seasonal produce, on you again to describe these dishes. This concept is not new or unique and producers from the world over have been working with seasonally available produce for ages, actually, forever.

In these recipes I also incorporate one of the most basics of preservation techniques, smoking, used to preserve the spring produce through leaner times. In this instance, this is not used to preserve, but to add flavour.  In making the most of the sweet spring produce available at this time of year and the smoking for flavour, makes for a light, spring lunch, evocative of the Mediterranean.

As in the Mediterranean, I was fortunate to produce my own backyard crop for the choicest and sweetest peas, broadbeans, mint and citrus that were ready to harvest, bang on time for a family birthday feast. 

While preparing the vegetables, I am captivated by the soft, fluffy green papoose of the broadbean pod that protects its offspring, keeping it in perfect condition. And the verdant greens of the mint, coriander and peas have not yet been yellowed off by the sun. This time of year really is the height of food perfection. 

For a low fuss feast, throw together these ingredients with some smoked new season lamb, and few embellishments are needed for a gorgeous Mediterranean inspired spring lunch.

To smoke the lamb and lemons I used a simple smoking technique using a kettle barbeque with hot coals and hickory chips available at most hardware shops. 

Smoked lamb with smashed broad bean and spiced pumpkin salad

Serves 4

800g butternut pumpkin, deseeded, peeled and diced

¼ tspn ground allspice

salt and ground pepper

3 tbsp pumpkin seeds

500g broadbeans, unpodded. If fresh broadbeans are not available use frozen.

12 lamb cutlets

100g marinated feta, crumbled

½ cup coriander leaves, finely chopped

2 tbsp lemon juice

Hickory wood chips

Olive oil spray

Paste

1 tbsp olive oil

1tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

½ tsp ground turmeric

2 tbsp lemon juice

¼ cup chopped flat leaf parsley

¼ cup chopped coriander

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line an oven tray with baking paper and place chopped pumpkin on the tray drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with allspice, salt and pepper to taste.

Bake for thirty minutes and then scatter the pumpkin seeds over the top and bake for another five minutes or so until the seeds are roasted. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

To make the paste, heat the oil in a small saucepan over a medium to low heat. Add the cumin, ground coriander, paprika, turmeric and garlic. Cook, stirring for one minute. Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice, fresh, chopped coriander and parsley. Stir to combine. Smear half of the paste onto the cutlets to marinate and set the remainder aside.

Prepare the broad beans by cooking in a medium saucepan of boiling water for three minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water and drain and cool. When cooled, peel off outer shell and reserve the inner beans. Gently smash with a potato masher, still leaving a coarse texture.

Any smoker can be used to smoke the lamb cutlets. I use a simple kettle barbeque using hot coals cooked down for a few hours with the kettle lid placed on it. Spray the cutlets with a light spray of olive oil. Place the cutlets on a greased wire rack that sits over a disposable foil tray with a handful of hickory chips spread over the base. The foil tray should sit on the kettle rack in the barbeque with the hot coals underneath it. Place the lid on the preheated kettle barbeque and leave the vent slightly open. The cutlets should take about thirty minutes to cook. They will turn a dark red on the outside and just pink on the inside. For well done lamb return to the heat for about another ten minutes or cooked inside when checked for doneness.

To assemble the dish, combine the pumpkin, broad beans, fetta and coriander in a bowl with a dash of olive oil and the lemon juice. Divide among serving plates and top with the lamb cutlets and dolloped with the remaining paste.

Smoked Lemon, pea and broadbean on flatbread

Serves 4

4 Lebanese flatbreads

olive oil spray

2 tsp dried mixed herbs

2 garlic cloves, peeled

4 tbsp olive oil

800g broadbeans in shell, alternatively use frozen broadbeans

250g fresh peas in shell, alternatively use frozen peas

1/3 bunch fresh mint

2 lemons, halved

100g pecorino cheese, grated

salt and ground pepper

Smoked lemons

Preheat smoker or barbeque and place lemon halves over a grill with a smoking wood below. I generally use hickory chips. Smoke for fifteen minutes or until the lemons appear golden and caramelised. They should be softened. If you are cooking this complete meal with the smoked lamb, you can smoke the lemons at the same time as the lamb.

Broad bean and pea topping

Shell the broad beans from the outer pod and cook the beans in a pot of boiling water for two minutes. Remove the beans with a slotted spoon and reserve the water for the peas and set broad beans aside. Shell the peas and cook for two minutes in the broad bean water. Drain the peas and set aside. Shell the cooked broad beans.

In a food processor, pulse the broad beans, peas, mint half the pecorino cheese, garlic, olive oil and juice from one smoked lemon in a food processor for only a few seconds to achieve a slightly chunky mixture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Flatbread

Preheat oven to 200C and spray the flatbreads lightly with olive oil on both sides. Sprinkle with a little salt and the herbs. Cook in the oven on a rack over an oven tray for about ten minutes or until golden and crisp but not burnt.

To assemble, break the flatbreads into shards and pile on the broad bean and pea topping, serving with extra grated pecorino, a further drizzle of olive oil and the remaining smoked lemon cut into halves again.