Cardamom & Oregano Roasted Chicken with Braised Fava Beans, Artichokes, and Peas (Guest Post)

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artichokes, braised vegetables, cardamom, fava beans, oregano, oven roasted chicken, peas, roasted chicken, دجاج مشوي

The delicious flavors of middle eastern cuisine with vibrant fresh colors are all combined together in this one complete meal dish of fresh herbs roasted chicken on a bed of popular middle eastern vegetables. Today, I’m very excited to be a guest over at Yummy Food. Lubna is the blogger behind Yummy Food, food photographer and stylist. At her wonderful blog, she shares her indian recipes and many recipes from around the globe, strongly recommended to give her a visit and feast your eyes. Lubna contacted me to write for her a guest post on the occasion of ramadan… Our fasting month. Since 2008, Lubna is holding a Ramadan event (Joy from Fasting to Feasting), where she is sharing some of ramadan recipes. This year the theme calling for all muslim bloggers from all around the globe to celebrate and share their traditions and popular meals during Ramadan. Please do a visit to the event page and feast on various recipes shared by wonderful bloggers, and read about to get to knowledge more about this holly month through peoples traditions from all around the world.

Roasted chicken is one of the comfort food I love to go with, not only in ramadan, but also in my regular busy days. Whether I’m looking for delicious and nutritious food to feed my family or something elegant and understated to serve at a friends gathering. It’s easy to make and quick to prepare. Serve it with another side, mainly vegetables, you’ll have a satisfying complete meal.

You will not be bored with the roasted chicken. Everytime I make roasted chicken I can add a new flavor. This simple roast chicken recipe uses fresh herbs with spices and olive oil marinade to influence and complement the flavor of the chicken. Oregano, the flavor of the Mediterranean and middle east. One of the essential herbs, its lively savory flavor makes it dearly loved, that is used to make many savory dishes, stocks, soups, and all kind of slow cooked savory dishes. Cardamom is an indian spice, widely used in middle east in savory or sweet dishes. It adds a curious , slightly camphorous undertone to the dishes. With garlic, an old herb, all the flavors mixed together to give the chicken a pleasant flavor that you will not forget. Serve the chicken with this vibrant summery vegetable braise of fava beans, artichokes, and peas (recipe follow) and a side of cracked wheat pilaf. Artichokes, or as they called in arabic kharsuf, are clearly enjoyed in arab styles of cooking. Their delicate nutty flavors make them popular in many dishes. For the recipes, please check out Lubna’s blog here.

الدجاج المشوي بنكهة الزعتر الاخضر والهيل

دجاجتين كل منها بوزن ١ باوند او حسب الرغبه
حوالي ١٥ حبة هيل
٣ فصوص ثوم
ملح وفلفل
ملعقتين كبار زعتر اخضر مفروم
١/٤ كوب زيت زيتون
١/٢ ملعقه صغيره بهارات مطحونه

ندق الهيل بالهاون حتى تنفصل القشور عن البذور، نزيل القشور ونكمل طحن البذور لحتى تظهر رائحة الهيل. نضيف الثوم المقطع والملح والزعتر، ندقه ونطحنه بالمدق لنعم ويصبح كالمعجون لعدة دقائق، نضيف ٣ ملاعق زيت زيتون ونحرك المزيج تدريجيا، نستمر بالطحن حتى نتاكد من حصولنا على معجون املس تقريبا نتبل الدجاج بالملح والفلفل ، ندهن معجون الزعتر والزيت على كامل الدجاج مع الفرك حتى نتاكد من تشبع الدجاج بالنكهات، نخلط باقي الزيت بباقي معجون الزعتر ونصبه فوق الدجاج، نغطيه ونتركه ينتقع لمدة من٤- ٨ ساعات او طول الليل بالثلاجه نحمي الفرن على ٤٠٠ ف، نضع الدجاج في صينية الفرن، نرش الفلفل المطحون على الدجاج وندخله الفرن لحوالي ساعه، او حتى يتحمر ويصبح لونه ذهبي قبيل انتهاء طهي الدجاج ندهنه مره اخرى بما تبقى من خليط الزعتر والزيت يقدم بجانب طبق من الخضار

خلطة الفول الاخضر مع الارضي شوكي والبازيلا المطهوه

١ كوب بازيلا حب طازجه او مفرزه
١ و ١/٢ كوب فول اخضر طازج او مفرز
١/٢ بصله مقطعه ارباع
١/٢ كوب من الارضي شوكي المنقوع بالزيت ومقطع ارباع
٢ ملعقه كبيره زيت زيتون
١ ملعقه صغيره ثوم مهروس
١ كوب بندوره شرحات رفيعه
ملح وفلفل
بهارات

في طنجره نضيف الفول والبصل والبازيلا نغمره بالماء قليلا ونتركه يغلي لمدة ١٠ دقائق على حراره متوسطه ، نصفيه من الماء ونبرده باضافة ماء مثلج عليه لينهي عملية الاستواء في طنجره اخرى نضيف الزيت والثوم نستويه لدقيقه، نضيف البندوره ونحرك، نضيف الفول والالبازيلا والبصل ونحرك بهدوء، ثم نضيف الارضي شوكي، الملح والفلفل يقدم بجانب الدجاج المشوي والفريكه المفلفله باللحم المفرومه

للمزيد من الصور لمتابعة الطريقه كامله تابعوني حيث احل ضيفة على Yummy Food

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Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

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Comfort food, dawood basha, dinner meals, ground beef, Healthy meals, kids friendly, lunch meal, meatball stew, meatballs, middle eastern, Soups and Stews, tomato sauce, Turkish, vegetable meatbals

Adding vegetables to your meatballs to enhance the flavor and add a nutritional boost to your hearty comfort meal.

Getting your kids to eat their vegetable is a challengeable mission lots of moms have.
How many time I forced them to eat veggies?
How many hours spent lecturing on how veggies are good for their health and bodies?
I asked myself if there is a way to end this dilemma?
So why not to make tricks and think out of the box?

Sneaking some vegetable into their favourite food is a good way to start with.
Why not to add some cauliflower, or spinach to the meatballs! Some carrots is  good too!

Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce – a well known dish called Dawood Basha, it has been told that it’s originally from turkey and where it took it’s name – is one of the classic comfort foods that enjoyed all over the levant countries. The basic recipe is only meatballs with pine nuts fried then simmered in the oven with tomato sauce.

Nothing Better Than a comfort hearty meal to enjoy in weekdays also to gather the whole family at weekends, baking the meatballs instead of frying make it light and fresh, adding the vegetable to the meatballs was a great idea to boost up more nutrient to the meal. Any vegetable available is very welcome, I tried to add spinach, cauliflower, and carrots. Make sure to shred or chop them very fine so they can mix in easily with the ground meat.  The vegetable wasn’t noticeable though, it’s all blended in with the herbs and spices that added to make it more flavorful, tender, and juicy. For a bonus, I like to add potato to the stew, since the original recipe can be served along with mashed potato instead of the rice.

Serve with rice pilaf.

 

Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

To make the meatballs:

1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped spinach
1/4 cup chopped cauliflower
1/4 cup minced parsley
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon of each: dried coriander, cinnamon, all spice
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the tomato sauce:

4-5 ripened tomato
1/2 cup chopped onion
2-3 garlic Cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste

To make the stew:

2-3 potato cut into medium cubes
Cooked rice pilaf to serve

Preheat the oven to 400 f.
In a bowl, mix the ground beef lump with the vegetable add the onion, parsley, spices and oil, and work with your hands, don’t over mix. Roll into a small ball the size of walnuts.
Arrange the meatball in an oven tray, bake for 15-20 min until little browned.

Meanwhile, cut the tomato, add onion, garlic and liquidate them in the blender. Add spiced, herbs, and tomato paste, blend in. Put the sauce in a pot on low heat to simmer and thicken.

Fry or bake the potato with a little oil, add to the simmering tomato sauce along with baked meatballs and don’t forgot to add the meat juices, it adds more flavor to the stew.

Adjust the seasoning and continue simmering for 15-20 more minutes.
Serve along with rice pilaf. You may add some toasted pine nut on top.

Scrumptious Roasted Chicken with Vegetable pan

Tags

baked chicken, chicken recipes, easy meals, one pan chicken, one pan dish, poatato, quick preparation meals, roasted chicken, vegetable

Chicken Roasted on a Bed of Vegetables – The Perfect One-Pot chicken recipe, my all the time escape when I’m short on time.

For me, roast chicken is one of those satisfying meals. This one-pot dish is pure comfort from start to finish, even the prep work of chopping vegetables calms me down somehow. Yes, one pan 10 min. of preparation, make it perfect for busy schedule mom, while it’s easy to prepare and all delicious healthy meal.

I made this with a few basic vegetables I had on hand: potato, onions, zucchini, tomato, bell pepper. Flavoured with fresh thyme  leaves to complete the authentic taste of mediterranean cuisine. Once I have it at dinner, I just know I’m going to have a mouth-watering meal, that all my family will humble around.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetable pan

chicken, cut into pieces
a mix of vegetables (like onions, potatoes, tomato, bell pepper and/or any vegetable you like, like broccoli, zucchini, eggplant…)
2 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and pepper, to taste
Mix of spices like: (paprika, all spice, cardamom, coriander)
fresh thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1\2 cup water

Heat the oven to 425°F.

Wash and prep your preferred vegetables and cut into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper and spices.
Clean the chicken, cut into pieces, rub with some lemon juice to make it smell goodthen wash again. Rub the chicken pieces with olive oil, salt, pepper and spices. Arranging on the bottom of a baking dish.
place the vegetables between and around the chicken. sprinkle with lemon juice. Add the thyme on between and on top.Mix the tomato paste and water sprinkle it over the chicken.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and bake for 1 1\2 hour or until chicken is done. After it’s done, take off the foil and place the chicken pan under the broiler, and brown for about 10 min. or until the chicken brown a little. Let the chicken pieces rest on a serving platter.

Cauliflower and Beef stew with Yogurt Sauce

Tags

beef stew, cauliflower, chuck roast recipes, cooked yogurt sauce, laban, laban recipes, main dish, Middle East, middle eastern recipes, stew, yogurt recipes

Delicious family style recipe for meat smothered in yogurt sauce, flavoured with garlic, cardamom and spices, and perfect middle eastern dish to enjoy cauliflower stew.
My children simply adore any dish that is done using cooked yogurt. I wanted to share with you this easy way to add variety to your daily dishes.

In middle eastern countries, Stews are basic fare for every day family cooking and are always served with vermicelli rice or plain rice. They are popular because they provide a wide range of nutrients from the meat, the vegetables and the rice. They also have the advantage of being economical as a relatively small amount of meat can go a long way into feeding a large family.

Yogurt is essential to middle eastern cooking. For eating and making Labne (the yogurt cheese) low-fat greek yogurt is just perfect for your health matters. For cooking it’s preferable to use the full-fat yogurt.Just make sure it has no gelatin in it, since it’s no need Goat yogurt is the most  kind  used for making the yogurt sauce in the middle east.

Actually, the Levant Cuisine depends on two ways to prepare and use of yogurt sauce; the cold yogurt sauce that is served over salads, or cold appetizers or as a dip to many mediterranean finger food. While the hot or the cooked yogurt sauce is the base for many recipes. That requires cooked yogurt can be used with vegetable stews. Usually many choices of vegetable will be perfect to company with the yogurt sauce. This sauce is good also over stuffed vegetables (what is known as Mahashi in the middle east). While many meat dishes directly depends on the yogurt sauce, where is the stuffed kibbeh balls or dumplings stew with yogurt sauce is one dish that resembles how delicious is the cooked sauce.

Middle eastern dishes often go by the same name as many arab dishes, but the preparation of them can be quite different, as similar dish can be prepared in different ways through out the middle east.
Some of the dishes that depend on the yogurt sauce is :The Jordanian Mansaf (it’s considered the national dish in Jordan), Laban Immo (the well-known dish in Lebanon), while the same dish called Shakrieh (the Syrian famous cooked yogurt and meat dish), in Palestine it’s named as Laban Tabeekh.

Making the cooked yogurt sauce is very easy and tricky at the same time. While you need to get the creamy texture and thickly yogurt sauce, it’s a very important step to stabilize the yogurt for cooking, you will need to add cornstarch and/or egg whites to the yogurt before cooking. continuous stirring of the sauce while it’s simmering is a very essential step too in making the sauce, this will end up in very successful, thick and creamy yogurt sauce.
The old traditional way to prepare the yogurt sauce is with the dried yogurt, either what is called Jameed (the dried yogurt balls) or the Keshek (the powdered dried yogurt), this was the old way to store the yogurt for a long time, and still used especially for the Jordanian Mansaf recipe. Since that will take a very long process in preparing the yogurt, dry it, then used it as base for the sauce. Nowadays, where the fresh yogurt is available all the time, cow’s yogurt is perfect to make the cooked yogurt sauce.
The lamb meat is usually the kind of meat that is popular in the middle east in almost all dishes recalling the use of red meat, and where the cooked yogurt famous with.  But you can use the beef or even the chicken. I used the beef chuck roast in making this dish.

The aromatic spices also play a very big rule in the middle eastern cuisine, the flavour of cardamom and gloves lend an exotic flair to this enticing beef and cauliflower stew. To add what is essential in cooking, the flavour of sauted garlic paste with coriander gives the best flavor we all adored.

Finally,  the yogurt sauce is considered one of many sauces that is stable mark for many of stew dishes in the middle east, other sauces used like the tomato sauce, and the tahini sauce, are very popular in many dishes too.

For me, the stewed cauliflower and beef with yogurt sauce is one of my favorite ways to enjoy cauliflower and the cooked yogurt, as well. Some people like the tahini sauce instead of the yogurt, especially for the cauliflower stew, but the yogurt sauce is also perfect.

For the meat:  

2 teaspoon olive oil, divided
2 pound boneless beef chuck roast, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 cup chopped onion
1\2 teaspoon of each ground: cardamom, cumin, coriander, black pepper, all spices
3-4 bay leaves
1 stick cinnamon

whole cauliflower head, cut into large floret
vegetable oil for deep-frying the cauliflower

basic yogurt sauce:

1 container 32 oz (2 lb) yogurt, all fat, sour is the perfect.
1 tablespoon corn starch
1\2 teaspoon cardamom
2 tablespoon minced garlic
coriander leaves, minced or ground dried coriander seeds
salt and pepper

To prepare the meat:

Season the meat pieces with ground spices like:black pepper, cardamom, coriander, cumin, don’t add salt at this time, it will toughen the meat, the salt will be added after cooking the meat.
In a pressure cooker, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat, saute the beef pieces, this process is important; it’s not only give the meat extra flavor but also help trap all the juices inside the meat and this will end with very tender meat after cooking. Add the onion and saute for 2-3 min. Add cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and cover the meat entirely with water. Close pressure cooker cover securely.
Cook for 20-30 minutes at highest pressure at the beginning, then lower the heat to medium.
Strain meat broth and keep aside for future use (It is a good idea to use meat broth instead of water when cooking rice). Throw cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and reserve meat cubes.

For the cauliflower:
heat the oil in the deep fryer, wok, or large sauce pan, drop in the cauliflower floret, a few floret at a time and deep-fry to golden brown, turning the floret in the oil so they cook evenly, all will take 5 min. Remove with the skimmer or slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper towels. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and  cumin.

For the yogurt sauce:
In another cooking pot, add the yogurt, dissolve the corn starch with 1\4 cup cold water the add it with the yogurt in the pot. Whisk into a thin yogurt, beat until smooth, in most of the time I use the immersion blender, it makes the process more easier. Place pot on medium heat, stir continuously with big spoon in one direction, bring to boil (you will see the bubble on the top while string), lower the heat and continue stirring until the yogurt is thick and creamy. It is important to stir continuously for the yogurt not to stick to the pan, and to help thicken and prevent it from getting grainy taste.

To finish the recipe:
Fold in the meat pieces, the cauliflower and some of the meat juices or stock, one cup at a time, stir to  adjust the thickness of the yogurt, add some more once it need it.
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil or ghee in a small skillet add the minced garlic and coriander, sauté for 1 min on low heat.
Stir the garlic coriander mixer into the simmering yogurt, adjust the taste add salt and some more cardamom if you like it. Allow to simmer for five minutes before removing from heat.
Serve hot with rice pilaf, of vermicelli rice.

Cardamom Flavoured White Rice

2 cups of long grain rice
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 1\2 cups cold water or the meat broth
1\4 teaspoon cardamom

Rinse with cold water until water is clear. Drain. heat the oil in 1 1\2 quart sauce pan, add the rice, saute for 2-3 min while stirring.  Add hot water or the broth. Bring to a boil. Lower heat until pan can be covered without boiling over. Simmer covered 15 to 20 minutes, until water is all absorbed. Fluff rice with fork. Cover and allow to stand in a warm spot until serving.