Was thinking of some ways to spice up my freezer pack of chickens. I used to live off a local shop’s “chicken and rice” dish that was simple, had a tahini drizzle and a delicious rice base. It wasn’t on the menu (it was much too simple an offering), but they made it for us and we ate a whole lot of it. So while doing a little bit of searching around, I came across this.
The Prep Table
Now, for you Musakhan and/or Sumac Chicken purists, you’re going to hate me. But you’re at ForensicBBQ and I do things the ForensicBBQ way. May not live up to traditional standards, but I’ll deliver you a helluva dish. We have a lot of preparation here, so let’s get at it.
I told you I like a delicious rice base – I went back to an old friend Koobideh Kebab and Mediterranean Rice . This still reigns supreme as my favorite flavored rice, so we’re mixing that up again. We’re also going to whip up a 7-spice seasoning: Allspice, Coriander, Cinnamon, Black Pepper, Cloves, Cumin, Nutmeg.
Spice is made.. I had already made the rice the night prior, but I’ll share that with you as well. Now we just have to put it all together, so let’s do that.
The Process
I told you it was my favorite, so I’m going to show it off again. Whipped up a quick batch in the pot and that was my dinner before I got to making the chicken dish the next day. Just look at the seasonings and the texture. I threw some tomatoes and almonds on there also, because we go all out here:
So now I know the rice is good to go, let’s get started with the chicken. These are frozen tenderloins, so I’m not going to say too much on that. Threw ’em on while they were still frozen, when they started to cook down, I threw the 7-Spice and some sumac on there. Throw ‘musakhan’ in your favorite search engine, and you will get some good lookin’ chickens on there.. bone in, skin-on beautiful birds. I’m using what I have, so deal with the frozen tenderloins.
As if the onion love wasn’t prevalent enough last week, we’re coming back with another Blackstone onion. This time, we’re carmelizing. Medium/low heat and let it go. I’ll throw the slider on this picture below, because it’s fascinating seeing the before and after of the simple allium vegetable.
Throw a bit of that 7-Spice/Sumac on them onions – you saw the amount of spices on that prep tray, no need to hold back now. Our onions are going to top our bread.. we’re going to shovel those on the pita, top it with the chicken, and wonder why I haven’t done this sooner. As I was waiting for the onions to finish up, I asked MrsForensicBBQ if we had any pine nuts. Of course, she had them in the pantry, so we’re going to toast them up too.
The Result
So there’s our finished cook. Very slight browning to the pita bread, a mediocre frozen chicken product, a beautiful carmelized onion.. toasted pine nuts. Plus that mediterranean rice I made yesterday, we’re eating good. Let’s plate it right.
We had a lemon, so I thought I’d throw that on there too. Because of the amount of flavor we had on the plate already, I thought having a lemon slice to dab the bread onto before a bite would be a nice, welcome touch. It was. I started my chicken rice love affair about a decade ago out of a gas station (true story) and we’ve evolved to a this. A nice one to eat for a day or two, like I do with most of my cooks. The rice didn’t stick around too long. And I think MrsForensicBBQ stole some of the onions.. but I had enough chicken to keep me eating clean for a little while.
A few months into the re-launch of our e-mails, knock on wood, we’re still up and it’s running good! If you don’t already, get these sent to you! One e-mail a week that has both MrsForensicBBQ and I’s posts from the week. Thanks so much, we’ll see you on MrsMonday