Za'atar chicken

Maneesh flat bread from the freezer

This week we started on the food mountain and along with the fresh veg which we ordered from the village shop we have had delicious meals!

Za'atar chicken with maneesh flatbread, radicchio and home grown corn salad



Such beautiful colours!

 



 



Back in December I googled za'atar chicken and found this wonderful recipe which someone had posted and attributed to one of my favourite food writers, Yotam Ottolenghi. From what I recall she said that she had adapted it slightly from the original. I have also adapted it in that instead of jointing the chicken I've kept it whole. We had it with maneesh flatbread which I had made from a Paul Hollywood recipe a couple of weeks ago and frozen, radicchio and cornsalad. I have also made it before and stuffed the mixture into thinner flatbreads which can be rolled around it.
The only thing I bought was the radicchio, everything else was part of the food mountain.

Recipe for za'atar chicken

1 Chicken (you can joint it or use chicken pieces)
2 red onions thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic crushed
4tbls olive oil
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tblsp sumac
1 lemon very thinly sliced (essential to slice thinly)
200ml stock or water
salt and pepper

Slash the chicken to allow the flavours to penetrate and marinade breast side down in the above ingredients overnight in the fridge.

2 tblsp za'atar

Heat oven to 200C

Transfer chicken, (breast side up) and marinade mixture to a roasting tin/tray and sprinkle the za'aar over everything.

Roast until chicken is cooked through

20g butter
50g pine nuts
4tblsp chopped parsley

Heat butter in small frying pan, add pine nuts and cook until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.

Allow chicken to cool then strip meat from the carcass and chop into whatever size you want.
Mix it with the cooked marinade mixture pine nuts and the chopped parsley. Sprinkle with more sumac and za'atar if you like.

We like to serve it with flat bread and salad and a fabulous garlicky yogurt.
Just add several crushed garlic cloves with some olive oil to greek yogurt and stir. It is truly addictive!