Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma and my excuses

Quick post before too many weeks go by without an entry! How did three weeks slip by ??
I can tell you how...two weeks ago I went to Baton Rouge to visit Genevieve. I had great intentions of catching up with my blogging while "on vacation". Instead, and a better plan anyway, we ate great food. Whenever Genevieve and I get together, food is an important part of the visit.
The crawfish boil pictured below is one of my favorite meals in an area with many great options. I love that you go down to the nearby convenience store and order it by the pound. They scoop into a newspaper lined plastic bag and voila, an amazing feast without need for plates or utensils, just have plenty of paper towels handy.

We also had charbroiled oysters in honor of Frank, who loves them. This platter actually had two other preparations as well, Oysters Rockefeller and Bienville. They were all excellent and worth the hour we had to wait at the restaurant to get a table.

This has nothing to do with the recipes I am going to share but it is my excuse to myself for not posting sooner.

When I got home I had only a couple of days before I was off to another adventure which did not revolve around food. In order to have good food to eat during this weekend event, I made this chicken dish along with my favorite coconut curried rice.

Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma

• 2 pounds, boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
• 2 tablespoons, chopped fresh parsley ( optional)

For the marinade

• 2 lemons, juiced
• ½ cup olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced or grated*
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• Red pepper flakes, to taste  

1) Combine the lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and red pepper flakes in a large bowl, or I mix my marinade right into the glass pan I am going to marinate my chicken in, then whisk to combine.

2) Add the chicken and toss well to coat.

3) Cover and store in refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 12 hours.

4) When ready to cook, heat oven to 425 degrees.

5) Add the quartered onion to the chicken and marinade, and toss once to combine.

6) Remove the chicken and onion from the marinade, and place in an oiled baking pan. If you like it crispy be sure to make plenty of room in the pan. I had it in a smaller baking dish where it overlapped a lot which made it moister, which I like.

7) Roast until it is browned, crisp at the edges and cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes.

8) Serve with the fresh parsley sprinkled if you like, on top over a bed of rice.

This is the kind of dish that ages well. I ate it for the next week and found the flavors only deepen.

 

Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma

This oven baked chicken has become my favorite way to cook chicken thanks to my sister-in-law, Gina. She finds the best recipes and then so kindly makes them for me and I get to share them here !!

The original recipe came from the New York Times Cooking website, it has gone through the "Laurie" filter to arrive at its present iteration.

Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma

• 2 pounds, boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
• 2 tablespoons, chopped fresh parsley ( optional)

For the marinade

• 2 lemons, juiced
• ½ cup olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced or grated*
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• A pinch ground cinnamon 
• Red pepper flakes, to taste  

1) Combine the lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and red pepper flakes in a large bowl, then whisk to combine.
*The recipe asked you to mince the garlic, I have my secret way to avoid the tedious chopping: the micro-grater.
You can also see in this photo that I mix my marinade right into the glass pan I am going to marinate my chicken in.

2) Add the chicken and toss well to coat.

3) Cover and store in refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 12 hours.

4) When ready to cook, heat oven to 425 degrees.

5) Add the quartered onion to the chicken and marinade, and toss once to combine.

6) Remove the chicken and onion from the marinade, and place in an oiled baking pan.

7) Roast until it is browned, crisp at the edges and cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes.

8) Serve with the fresh parsley sprinkled on top.


I love to serve the chicken with my coconut rice, it's also great with roasted vegetable.
While the recipe calls for the boneless, skinless chicken thighs, the next time I make it, I am going to try a using  bone-in chicken pieces.  If you try this,  increase your baking time by 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your pieces.

Great Stuffing: the last Thanksgiving post...

I know almost a week has past since that exquisite meal...
I do promise this will be the last post concerning Thanksgiving.

This year we decided to cut down and only do one stuffing, usually we do a cornbread stuffing and a bread stuffing, so we made up this hybrid version.

It was so good, I needed to preserve it here for posterity and next year's meal.
I may not be able to wait that long to make this stuffing again. It would be a nice addition to any roasted chicken dinner.

Laurie & Genna's Best of Both Stuffing

Ingredients

1 8X8 pan of cornbread, cubed and staled
1/2 loaf of sourdough whole wheat bread, cubed and staled
3 cups broth, vegetable or fowl
6 tablespoons melted butter
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 chopped red bell pepper
small onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fennel bulb ( optional)
3/4 cup chopped tart apple, Granny Smith or Pippin
1 1/2 cups chopped mushrooms
fresh sage and thyme sprigs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1) Make an 8 X 8 pan of cornbread, cool, cut into cubes and allow to become stale. Or to speed that up heat the cubes in a low ( 225 F) oven for an hour or so.

2) Cube the whole wheat sourdough bread and allow to become stale or add it to the cornbread cubes in the oven.

3) Preheat the oven to 350 F and butter a 13 X 9 inch glass baking dish.

4) In skillet, saute the onions, fennel and fresh herbs in the olive oil until soft.

5) Add the chopped pepper, celery and apple, continue to saute until the whole mixture is soft. Set aside in a large bowl.

6) Saute the mushrooms in the same pan with a little more olive oil until most of the moisture has cooked out of them. Add them to the bowl.

7) Toss the bread cubes into the bowl with all the cooked vegetables, add the broth,melted butter, salt and pepper and toss to combine. Make sure all the bread is moistened, feel free to add more broth if it looks dry.

8) Fill the glass baking dish with stuffing.

9) Cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil cover and bake for another 15 minutes.

Serve with roasted bird or just by itself.