How To Make Friends With Food

The seder was last night.
Here’s an Ottolenghi chicken that won’t let you down.

Roast Chicken with sumac, za’atar and lemon

1 large organic or free-range chicken divided into quarters: breast and wing, leg and thigh (we used chicken thighs)

2 red onions, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

4 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

1 1/2 tsp ground allspice (pimento) (we used about half that much)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbsp sumac

1 lemon, thinly sliced

200 ml chicken stock or water

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 Tbsp Za’atar

50 g toasted pine nuts

Chopped parsley to garnish

Instructions

In a bowl mix together oil, all the spices and stock/water. Pour over chicken, onions and lemon either in a large bowl or casserole dish. Mix together so that everything is evenly coated. Cover and put in fridge to marinate for a few hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 200C (390F). Transfer entire contents of the bowl/casserole dish to a baking sheet. Make sure the chicken pieces are spread out and not touching each other (skin side up). Sprinkle more za’atar over the chicken, onions and lemon. Roast in oven for 30-40 minutes (until chicken is coloured and cooked through).

They recommend that you toast the pine nuts in butter on the stove. We just toasted them in the toaster oven. Do whichever you wish.

When the chicken is cooked moved to a serving dish and sprinkle pine nuts and parsley over top. You can add more za’atar.

Mmmmm.

- Sophie

Recently, one batch of crust (prepared very well under my tutelage) held two very different, very delicious things.

One is the best quiche I have ever eaten. It was just a typical quiche recipe with a lot of cheddar cheese, left-over chicken, dollops of cream cheese, sauteed mushrooms and shallots as well as some other things I seem to have forgotten (but quiche is the always different mystery food of whatever is in your fridge so roll with it).The second was some sort of chocolate confection baked into the crust. It wasn’t fancy, but it was fun to eat.

This post isn’t about recipes (those will follow!), this is about why we cook. Brunch was a perfect example. We cook to eat, we cook to eat around the people we care about, we cook to eat off of the plates of the people we care about. We cook to feed but above all else- we cook to eat, together.

-Olivia

Olivia and I met up in Montreal for brunch with friends (the ultimate friends with food reunion).

I thought baked eggs would be an appropriate dish. They are decadent and you can feed multiple people at once. After perusing multiple foodblogs with various different baked eggs I as-per-usual settled on smitten kitchen. But it was only a starting point. Here is what I made.

Baked Eggs in Tomatoes

For each person will need the following

1 tomato (I used vine tomatoes, they will need to be big enough to hold the remaining ingredients)

1 egg

1 slice of bacon (optional)

A sprinkling of cheese (I used feta and Parmesan, but you can use anything really)

A basil leaf (or even half)

Preheat to 400F

Cook bacon 3/4 of the way.

Slice off the top of the tomato and scoop out the seeds. Place tomato in an oven proofed dish. Line the tomato with the partially cooked bacon, break the egg inside the bacon-lined tomato. Sprinkle with cheese and garnish with basil.

Cook for around 20 minutes. You’ll need to watch the egg white to see when it is cooked. Ideally the yolk should still be runny. You might want to remove some of the white if a) your tomato is too small or b) because the white will then cook faster (less of it) and your yolk will more likely be runny.

Serve immediately. We ate them with fresh Montreal bagels (and fruit and cinnamon buns, excessive amounts of food).

Photos by Tom Aagaard. I’ve missed you photographing our food.

- Sophie