As late as the early sixties, barter was still a common practice even among the townsfolk who saw a remarkable influx of villagers on a daily basis. Even a practising paediatrician like my father had to be part of this network, to my mother’s total dismay. How many times did a grateful patient leave a live chicken on his desk for services rendered! What ensued was a flurried chicken chase and a flutter of feathers after which the sweaty maidservant, adept at such manoeuvres, would carry the perplexed bird to the neighbour across the street who, like a good Muslim, slaughtered the animals according to the ritual procedures of halal. For many years I believed that chickens, rabbits, lambs, and such gifts as my father received by way of remuneration, belonged to the Muslim faith. To add confusion to ignorance, our maidservant, not especially noted for being clever, convinced me that our neighbour had lost his leg because the ghosts of the dead chicken had picked at it for so many nights that he had been left with only one leg and that he would soon lose the other if the neighbourhood kept turning to him for this serial slaughtering.
However, that was not quite the end of my trials in the realm of winged creatures! Ever since my early beginnings as a shy cook, I had resolved to handle only the freshest produce that the surrounding farms could offer and stay away from the comfortable pitfalls of frozen foods and pre-packaged fare. My mother’s influence and my subscription to an exclusive cooking magazine compounded my efforts. So I headed for the market-place to buy a fresh chicken!
There were endless rows of cages with noisy chickens bickering at the shoppers and at each other, but hard as I looked, nothing that looked close to anything that could go in the oven was to be seen. One vendor invited me to pick any bird I fancied. He then picked up a fowl, demonstrated with a grand gesture that it was the choicest in the brood, and without giving me the chance to respond, he expertly twisted its neck while mumbling the formula of halal. Revolted by this unexpected spectacle, I turned round and left the market, postponing such expeditions to an indeterminate future date.
2 fat chickens
2 lemons, cut in four
2 tsp salt
2 onions
6 garlic cloves
¼ cup oil
Salt and pepper to taste
A few whole grains of allspice
Cut off the legs and breasts of each chicken, setting aside what is left of the chicken for stock or for soup. Sprinkle the pieces with salt and pepper to taste and rub lightly with the oil of your choice. Set them in an oven pan.
Peel the onions, then wash them and cut them in four; peel the garlic cloves and keep them whole. Add them to the chicken tray and put the tray in a preheated oven to 250°C/450°F/Gas mark 8 for one hour or until they are well cooked and the skin is golden. Serve immediately.
This chicken goes very well with potatoes and rosemary. It is also a perfect supplement to a plate of oriental rice. If you wish to serve it with the rice, especially at a buffet dinner, it is advisable to remove the skin and bones from the cooked chicken, cut the meat in slivers and spread it over the rice. Sprinkle with a generous amount of fried almonds and pine nuts and serve immediately.
While lamb is a staple of shawerma, chicken has recently made a major breakthrough and has become quite a favourite. My butcher confided in me that while chicken is increasingly popular, shopkeepers still add layers of lamb fat in between the layers of chicken to guarantee a full flavour!
My response to such stratagems is home-made shawerma, juiciness and flavour guaranteed!
600 g (1 lb 6 oz) breasts of chicken
1 tsp salt
¾ tsp pepper
¾ tsp allspice
¼ tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom
2 tsp spice mixture
¼ tsp gum arabic
¼ cup olive oil
3 tbs freshly
squeezed lemon juice
Measure the olive oil and lemon juice into a bowl. Prepare the spice mixture: grind the cinnamon, cloves and cardamom and grate the nutmeg, measure them and add to the oil and lemon. Crush the gum arabic with the salt to a fine powder and add it to the mixture. Mix and pour this over the whole chicken breasts. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container. The next day you will need 40 minutes for preparing and serving.
Drain the chicken breasts from the marinade and fry in a heavy saucepan on high heat, turn them over and, once they are browned, lower the heat and cover the pan; let them cook for a few minutes. Transfer the chicken to a wooden board and cut the pieces across into thin slivers. Serve with a tahineh salad or serve individual portions of the chicken in pocket kmaj breads – four to six sandwiches – to which you add tahineh sauce and slivered onions sprinkled with sumak and some chopped parsley.
M’sakhan comes from the Tul Karem and Jinin areas north of Bethlehem. As a speciality, it certainly competes with mansaf and kidreh as the representative Palestinian dish. It is one of the dishes at which many restaurants excel. The secret of its success is in the bread, which should be neither too thick nor too thin. The tabun is the famous clay oven that was a centrepiece in every garden or backyard hakura, a small plot of land. When this bread is not available, it is possible to use kmaj bread, which is thick enough to carry the stuffing.
M’sakhan is a favourite at informal family gatherings where everyone should forget about using a fork and knife and dig in with their hands. One of my most vivid childhood memories is a Friday we spent with friends, wealthy landowners of proud peasant stock, who lived in a big mansion in Tul Karem. The host was a real patrician, proud to be surrounded by his large family and his equally large wife who wore her beautifully embroidered thawb with a great deal of dignity and grace. She had tattoos on her forehead and chin and, underneath her stately headwear, her thick braids were dyed with henna.
The house and garden teemed with grown-ups and children of different ages, and babies were handed over from the wet nurses to the mothers, the aunts or the guests, and some would burst out crying, utterly confused by the number of unfamiliar faces.
Needless to say, the star of the day was the m’sakhan, served in huge copper trays on bread, just as it came out of the tabun. While the men consumed large quantities of the delicious meal under the trellis in the garden, the women sat in the cool of the big dining room and teased the pregnant women about the magic of m’sakhan for pregnancy. There must have been at least three pregnant women present and by the end of the day, everyone swore to the fact that m’sakhan does indeed induce easy delivery.
Later on, all the women retired to the many bedrooms especially set up for a general post-luncheon siesta. A scream broke the stillness of the slow afternoon, upsetting the shadowy light that had just settled on the marble floors of the cooling bedrooms and creating commotion among the bevy of half-naked women. In an instant, the whole house was in uproar as one of the women, very pregnant but not due until a month later, broke her waters and went into labour. Half the household accompanied her to the hospital and two hours later a young boy came running down the dusty street announcing the addition of another boy to the family.
That day it was agreed that m’sakhan was indeed a harbinger of happy news!
There are three stages for cooking this dish and the preparation is not complicated if the instructions are followed carefully. Do not hesitate to use your own recipe for preparing chicken stock and broiling the chicken, provided it does not call for more than the standard ingredients. The key ingredient is the sumak, which you buy as whole grains unless you have a really reliable ’attar, or spice vendor. It is common practice for sellers of spices to camouflage adulterated sumak with colouring.
Indeed, the key to the success of this dish is in the timing.
For the chicken
2 chickens from the farmers’ market
1 onion, peeled and cut into eight pieces
4–6 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
For the broth
Remaining parts of the chicken, necks and wings
3 cups water
1 small onion, whole
2 garlic cloves
4–6 grains allspice
1 small cinnamon stick
1 slice of lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
For the topping
6 medium-sized onions, about 1 kg (2 lbs 4 oz)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
½ tsp allspice
3 tbs sumak
2 cups stock
1 cup extra quality olive oil
For serving
6–8 hot tabun breads
¼ cup sumak
80 g (3 oz) pine nuts
Cut out the legs and breasts of the chicken, setting aside what is left, necks and wings, for the stock. Season them with the salt and pepper and spread them in a greased oven tray.
Add the onion pieces and garlic and put in a preheated oven for one hour or until they become golden and tender.
Put the necks and wings in a pot and cover with water, approximately three cups. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil on a high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and let the contents simmer for 30–40 minutes. Add water if necessary in order to have at least two cups of stock at the end of the process. Strain the stock in a container and set aside.
This stock can be prepared ahead and refrigerated in a well-sealed jar as this will save you time. Avoid using commercial stock, which might contain preservatives or spices incompatible with this dish.
Peel and finely chop the onions and put in a casserole. Add the salt and cook, covered, over a low heat until the onions become transparent and soft, about 30 minutes. Add the spices, the stock and the oil and bring to the boil. (The topping can be prepared a few hours ahead.)
Cook for five minutes more and the sauce will be ready for serving.
Now that the chicken and topping are ready, spread the hot bread on a big serving plate; a traditional brass sidir is ideal for this kind of dish. Add at least ¾ cup topping to every piece of bread, add one piece of chicken on top. Cover the chicken with some more of the topping and sprinkle with pine nuts.
Sprinkle the portions with more sumak and the plate is ready for the enjoyment of your family or your friends! My youngest daughter, Maha, a student in Paris, holds regular m’sakhan evenings for her French and Middle Eastern friends.
Tips
Formerly bread arrived at the table straight from the tabun. The best way to heat the tabun bread is to wrap it with foil paper and put it in the hot oven for 8–10 minutes.
Easy to prepare, chicken stuffed with meat, rice and pine nuts is a festive dish and its success depends greatly on the clever use of fresh spices. In preparing this dish, you have to count one stuffed chicken for every four persons.
1 lemon
1 large chicken (about 1.5 kilos/3 lbs 7 oz)
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
For the stuffing
1 tbs butter
150 g (5 oz) ground lean beef
¾ tsp salt
⅓ tsp pepper
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp nutmeg
⅓ tsp cinnamon
(or 1½ tsp mixed spices with an extra dash of nutmeg and cinnamon)
½ cup regular-grain rice
30 g (1 oz) fried pine nuts
Rub the chicken with the two halves of a lemon and set it aside for half an hour, after which rinse it under the tap and leave it in a colander to drain. Just before stuffing it, rub the inside with salt and nutmeg and sprinkle salt and white pepper on the outside.
Meanwhile brown the ground beef in the butter on a high heat, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid from the meat is absorbed. Add the salt and spices and stir. Wash and drain the rice and add it to the pan, stirring until it is mixed with the meat. Measure out ¾ cup hot water and add to the rice mixture. Cover and bring to the boil, then lower the heat and cook for 5 minutes before turning off the heat. Add the fried pine nuts and then spoon the mixture inside the chicken. Secure the end with toothpicks or by sewing the skin together. Put the chicken in a greased pan and cover with aluminium foil. Cook in a preheated oven (220° C/425° F/Gas mark 7) for about an hour. Uncover and cook 15 minutes more until the chicken turns golden. You might need to spoon out some of the juices over the chicken. Serve immediately.
You can serve with extra hashweh rice (see recipe p.76) and an assortment of steamed vegetables. A bowl of unflavoured yoghurt can be included.
Tips
The rice should be less than half cooked when the stuffing is spooned inside the chicken.
1.5 kg (3 lbs 4 oz) of chicken breasts cut into big bite-size pieces
1½ tsp salt
¾ tsp white pepper
½ tsp allspice
1½ tbs sumak
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
Cut the chicken breasts into big bite-size cubes and add salt, pepper, allspice, sumak, crushed garlic and fresh lemon juice. Mix well so as to distribute seasonings on all the chicken and refrigerate, tightly covered, for 2 hours.
When you put the chicken on the skewer, make sure there is enough space between the pieces to allow for even grilling without having to overcook them. You might need 8 minutes for each side. Serve immediately.
Any leftover chicken you might have will do very well the next day as a cold meal. Spread some olive oil on half a kmaj or a roll, grill it lightly in a toaster oven and add the cold chicken. Serve a salad with it, and you will have a feast!
Chicken barbecued on coal is quite an adventure if you can get it crisp and juicy. It is a favourite exercise for Friday or Sunday luncheons, any time of the year except on the few days when it rains, and for summer dinners on the terrace or under the trellis.
I always tend to buy chicken legs, a first choice among members of my family. You can also use the breasts, which can be equally juicy thanks to the marinade. One important tip is to keep the skin on through the cooking and leave the option of removing it to individual taste.
8 legs of chicken
1¼ tsp salt
¾ tsp white pepper
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 hot pepper, very finely chopped
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
A small handful of fresh thyme leaves or 1 tbs dried and crushed thyme
Rinse the legs and pat them dry with a paper towel. Prepare the marinade with the rest of the ingredients and add it to the chicken. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours in a tightly covered container. Remove from the refrigerator half an hour before grilling time as it is always better to have them at room temperature for cooking.
Sear them on very hot coals on both sides, turning them over once, then close the lid of your grill and cook them slowly for 45 minutes or until they are done to your liking. You have to check them regularly to make sure that they cook evenly; you might have to turn them once.
If you have an open grill, sear them on both sides then baste them regularly with the marinade, turning them over once, until they are done.
Serve immediately with baked potatoes or French fries and a traditional salad.
