Chicken fattee with rice, crispbread and yogurt

Chicken fattee is a Lebanese layered dish. It's takes at least two hours to prepare. The best approach is to think in layers. The bread and yogurt can be cold, the rest of the layers need to be warm. Eat with your hands.



Layer 1 (crispbread)

Coat Lebanese flatbread with some melted butter and bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the bread is crispy. Cut like a pizza in triangles. If you can't find flatbread, slice pita bread in half.

Layer 2 (rice)

Melt butter over a medium heat, add a cinnamon stick (or powder) and onion. Fry for 10 - 15 minutes. Add pre-soaked rice, water (200 ml for 100 gram of rice) and chickpeas. Boil, add salt and simmer until the rice is done.

Layer 3 (chicken and gravy)

Chicken:
The chicken takes the most time to prepare, so start with the chicken. Rub the chicken with olive oil, season with black pepper, salt and ground cloves. Bake in the oven for about 75 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool. Take the meat off the bone and slice into smaller peaces.

Gravy:
Deglaze the roasting tray - pour off most of the oil - with about 150 ml water.

Layer 4 (aubergine)

Cut an aubergine in small pieces, toss with salt and let sit for one hour. Rinse the salt off and pat dry. Fry the aubergine in olive oil until it's soft and light brown.

Layer 5 (tomato sauce)

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry sliced garlic until light brown. Add a cinnamon stick and a can of plum tomatoes, simmer for half an hour, then season with salt and pepper.

Layer 6 (yogurt)

Mix Greek yogurt and crushed garlic with salt.

Layer 7 (seasoning)

Chopped flat-leaf parsley and warm toasted pine nuts.

Assemble the dish.

Layer the crispy bread:


Add a layer of rice:


The chicken pieces:


Spoon some gravy over the chicken:


The aubergine:


Add a layer of tomato sauce:


Dot some yoghurt over the tomato sauce:


Finish with the flat-leaf parsley and pine nuts:

Paella - Rick Stein in Mallorca

1) Fry garlic in oil, add squid & black pepper.



2) Add onion.



3) Add bell pepper.



4) Add tomatoes.



5) Add rice and saffron (you can mix the saffron with the fish stock).



6) Add fish stock. Make sure it's salty enough. You can mix the stock with some lemon at this point.



7) Fry some prawns separately.



8) Let it simmer on the stove top until the rice is half done (15 minutes).



9) Put the paella in the oven until the rice is done and the paella has a crunchy top.

Spicy tomato sauce (for cold poached fish)

From Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape, episode 2 (Sardinia).

Fry one onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil in a sauté pan. Add a few bay leafs, crumble some dried chilies and add a handful of parsley. Add a can of plumb tomatoes, plenty of salt and raisins (for an Arabian flavor). Season with red wine vinegar.

Cut the onion very finely.

In the program this sauce was served cold with poached fish (skate wings, skin peeled off after poaching in salted water).



But it's also a perfect sauce for hot pasta.

Ladolemono (Olive Oil and Lemon Sauce)

120 ml extra-virgin olive oil
120 ml fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

Simply mix the ingredients.

A classic Greek sauce used on grilled meats, vegetables, and fish.

Horiatiki

Dressing:
3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, salt. Sprinkle with oregano, pour olive oil over the salad, and toss. Add feta last and sprinkle some more oregano. You need Greek oregano (rigani, ρίγανη) instead of other variations.

Salad:
3 ripe tomatoes, cut in wedges
1/4 red onion, small chunks
1/2 cucumber, sliced in half-moons
1/2 green pepper
120 gram feta cheese
16 kalamata olives

La Salade Niçoise

La Salade Niçoise (the 'original' recipe, without any boiled vegetables. Skip the boiled potatoes and boiled green beans. Young broad beans and young artichokes are not available out of season, so you can skip them if needed. Variation: add capers, cooked white beans, garlic)

Recette pour 6 personnes.

* Ingrédients

pour la vinaigrette :
1 c. à café de moutarde de Dijon
2 c. à soupe de vinaigre de vin rouge (red wine vinegar)
6 c. à soupe d’huile d’olive AOC de Nice
Sel et poivre

pour la salade :
6 tomates mûres et fermes type Saint Pierre
1 petit poivron vert à salade (green pepper)
3 cébettes (ou à défaut 1 oignon blanc) (spring onion)
2 poignées de riquette (rucola) ou de mesclun (salade mélangée typique du Comté de Nice) (mixed green leaves)
3 œufs durs (hard boiled eggs)
1 grosse boite de thon au naturel (can of tuna)
12 filets d'anchois dessalés (anchovy, desalted)
1 poignée d'olives noires AOC de Nice
et selon la saison
3 petits artichauts violets dits poivrade (raw young artichoke) Impossible to get out of season.
300 g de févettes du pays (English: young broad beans; Dutch: tuinbonen) Impossible to get out of season.
10 feuilles de basilic facultatif (basil leaves)
1 cœur de céleri (celery)
1 petit concombre (cucumber)

* Préparation

Faites durcir les œufs puis plongez-les dans l’eau froide, écalez-les.
Boil eggs, cool in cold water and descale

Dans un saladier, préparez la vinaigrette et ajoutez (=to add) les cébettes finement émincées (=sliced).
Prepare vinaigrette in a salad bowl and add finely sliced spring onions.

Nettoyez les artichauts, émincez-les finement et mettez-les dans le saladier.
Clean artichoke, slice finely and add to bowl.

Écossez (=to shell) les févettes. Coupez les tomates en quartiers, ajoutez-les.
Add tomato and shelled broad beans.

Émincez le petit poivron à salade en petits cercles,
Cut green pepper in rings.

Lavez rapidement la riquette ou le mesclun, essorez et répartissez sur les tomates.
Wash green salad leaves, dry and arrange between tomato's.

Décorez avec le thon émietté, les œufs durs coupés en rondelles ou en quartiers, les cercles de poivrons, les filets d’anchois, les olives noires.
Arrange the tuna, eggs, green pepper, anchovy and black olives.

Ciselez les feuilles de basilic.
Cut the basil leaves

Mélangez-la au tout dernier moment et servez.
Mix just before serving

Hummus bi-Tahini / Babaganoush

Turkish hummus (from Rick Stein)

Note for the photographs: I didn't have any sumac or parsley.

Mash chickpeas and add tahin, add some hot water and lemon juice. Mash into a creamy sauce. [ I found the taste a bit bland so I would mix salt and garlic into the creamy sauce ]

Put on saucer. Add sumac, cumin and parsley. Add whole chickpeas.



Add hot olive oil with fried garlic and paprika powder. Add more sumac, parsley and thin as a garnish.



Hummus bi-Tahini (lit: chickpeas with tahina)

Based on one 400 gram can of chickpeas.

Puree the chickpeas coarsely.

Mash 2 - 3 cloves of garlic with 1/4 teaspoon of coarse salt in a mortar. Add 4 tablespoons tahini and the juice of 2 lemons. Mix. Variation: add cumin powder.

Add the tahini mixture to the chickpeas and work it with a wooden spoon until a smooth paste. Add some water if necessary.

Serve in bowl covered with a layer of olive oil. Garnish with chopped parsley / black olives / pine nuts / chili powder.

Babaganoush

Babaganoush has almost the same ingredients. Roast 2 eggplants in the oven. Scoop out the pulp with a spoon and puree.

Then: (almost) same as above.

Mash 2 cloves of garlic with 1/4 teaspoon of coarse salt in a mortar. Add 2 tablespoons tahini and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice. Mix. Variation: add cumin powder.

Add the tahini mixture to the eggplant and work it with a wooden spoon until a smooth paste.

Serve in bowl covered with a layer of olive oil. Garnish with chopped parsley / black olives / pine nuts / cumin powder / chili powder.

Variations:
* Instead of tahini use a little olive oil and / or chopped tomatoes or an oven softened onion.
* Add 250 ml yogurt.
* Add a little harissa to make a Tunesian version.

Chickpea salad

Another one in the series 'damn quick and easy'.
Heat olive oil in a pan, add one sliced red onion and cook, stirring, over a medium heat for 6-8 minutes until soft. Add 2 garlic cloves, one chili and fry for another minute. Tip in one can of chickpeas and stir. Squeeze over lemon juice and add plenty of flat leaf parsley.

Remove from heat, crumble over Greek feta cheese and toss well.

... from Gordon Ramsay's 'Healthy Appetite'. I don't own this book, which was apparantly written by Ramsey's side-kick Sarge. Ramsey only wrote the intro and branded the book with his name.

Gazpacho

What is summer without gazpacho? On the internet there are plenty of gazpacho recipes floating around. Some even list tabasco and worcestershire sauce as ingredients. I'm somewhat of a purist: keep it simple.

Gaz is thought to be from an Arabian-Spanish word, kaz, a wooden mortar and pestle for grinding or mashing bread (Johannes van Dam: "De Dikke van Dam", page 221. Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 2006). If true, gazpacho could be any soup made from ground vegetables, bread and oil & vinegar. Before the 16th century gazpacho was certainly made without tomato, and was most likely more of a bread soup. The basis of gazpacho are good quality olive oil and vinegar.

Start with a few slices of stale bread, without the crust. Don't use bread from the supermarket! Grind the bread together with 5 ripe tomatoes (seeded and peeled), green pepper (seeded and peeled; bake in oven to make this easy), 2 cloves of garlic, 4 table spoons of white wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar), black pepper and salt. According to Johannes van Dam cucumber does not belong in gazpacho.

Like when making mayonnaise, add about 50 ml. of olive oil while grinding the bread-vegetable mixture to a thick paste. Before serving, add ice cold water, or ice cubes, to taste. If eaten as a full meal, serve with cucumber, tomato, onion, bread and boiled egg on the side.

Octopus in red wine

This recipe is Greek: Oktapodi Krasato. You need a kilo of baby octopus to serve two people if used as a main course or four to eight people if used as antipasto. This recipe tastes even better the next day. Beware: it takes almost 3 hours to prepare.

Unfortunately, unless you're living near certain coastal areas, it's very difficult to obtain fresh baby octopus. You're more likely to find them cleaned and frozen. The one's I bought were packaged in Vietnam. Defrost the octopus and cut in smaller pieces; slice the head in two and cut the tentacles in sets of four. Boil the octopus in their own liquid for 20 minutes. You'll be surprised how much water will be released. Boil until dry. If that takes too long discard excess water.

Add a a few tablespoons of olive oil and 200 gram of whole pearl onions (of course, remove the outer layers). They are really tiny onions used for pickling; zilveruitjes in Dutch. Coat the octopus and pearl onions with olive oil and fry for a minute or so. Then add:

200 ml of red wine
80 ml of red wine vinegar
one cup of water
one tomato, skinned and grated or made into a pulp
one bay leaf
one teaspoon of dried oregano
half a teaspoon of crushed black pepper

Simmer for 1,5 to 2 hours until the octopus is tender. You should be left with a thick, not watery, sauce covering the octopus and onions. Do not use cheap wine for this recipe.

I buy my wines at Van Bakel & Cavé located in the Kerkstraat, Amsterdam. The owner of this small shop is a professional enologist. All the wines he sells have been properly tested on their chemical make-up, including the level of sulfite and the type of yeast. In his career he has reported about 500 instances of bad and even dangerous wines to the Dutch ministry of health. However, on average it takes at least three months for the authorities to spring into action, if they take any action at all. In the meantime these wines are being sold to the unsuspecting public. This should be considered a scandal.

Last summer he tested a batch of Argentine wine and found a type of yeast which - at temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius - produces dangerous levels of oxygen. He declared the batch unsafe for consumption and the boxes were labelled as such. Regardless of this, the batch was sold to bars and restaurants for less than 2 euros per bottle. This resulted in numerous exploding bottles of wine, causing at least one nearly fatal injury. This story never made the newspaper.