Tag Archives: Chicken

Don’t throw away your chicken bits!

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My mom is so resourceful, it’s crazy.  Don’t even think about throwing away roasted chicken bones.  She might come after you.  With the chicken bones, my mom makes a dish called “jook” (ryhmes with “book”).

To make this, you’ll need to find a decent-sized pot.  Mine is 3 quarts, but you can certainly use a bigger one.

Next steps:

First and foremost, you’ll want to soak your rice. You’ll need to soak it for 4 hours before cooking. Most people are amazed when I tell them to soak their rice. Your rice will be so much tastier and softer if you do this in advance, especially brown rice.

Next, place your roasted chicken bones and any chicken juices into a pot.  Knowing that I’m going to make jook, I usually leave some meat on the bones. Add 8 cups of water to your pot.  Sometimes I add veggie or chicken stock, depending on if I have it on hand. Also add one 2 inch piece of ginger (sliced in half to release more flavor) and jujubes (the dates, not the candy).  If you can’t find jujubes, don’t worry, just do without them.  They taste slightly like ginger so if you only have the ginger, it’ll still taste awesome. If you have never seen jujubes, they look like this:

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer for an hour and a half. You’ll end up with a stock that looks like this, having an amber color:

While you’re waiting for the stock, cook your rice. I have a wonderful rice cooker that sings a jingle when the rice is done. In fact, it’s a choo-choo train sound, which is entirely entertaining. For this step, don’t worry if you have rice that is too dry or too wet. It doesn’t really matter since it’ll be going into your pot and cooking longer.

Alright, we’re almost done. When your stock is ready, pull out everything from the pot. The finished product will be ruined if you unintentionally bite into a huge chunk of ginger. Take any remaining meat off the bones and throw it back into the pot. I like to shred the chicken a little before I throw it back into the pot. Add the 2 cups of cooked rice into the pot at this point. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for an hour and a half. Then, eat! The finished product should be oatmeal-like or similar to cream of wheat. It is fantastic to eat with kimchi and/or roasted seaweed on top.

I know this sounds like a lot of effort (and I’ll admit that it kind of is), but it is worth it. And, you can feel good about not letting any part of the chicken go to waste! The taste should have a mild chicken flavor with a slight bite of ginger to it. You’ll have at least 5 hearty servings of jook on hand with this recipe.

Herb Roasted Chicken

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This recipe made my entire house smell like a field of thyme and rosemary.  It was absolutely wonderful.  I threw some thickly cut pieces of carrot and sweet potato on the sides of the chicken about 30 minutes into cooking the chicken.  The vegetables came out caramelized and had a slightly crunchy exterior, and most importantly, they were rolling around in the drippings of the chicken.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (4 lbs approximately)

1 tablespoon of thyme, minced

2 tablespoons of parsley, minced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 lemon

1 teaspoon of pepper and some extra to sprinkle inside the chicken

Any good roasting vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, fennel, and/or onions

Olive oil (the amount is not exact – keep reading below)

Assembly:

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

First prepare an herb paste to coat the chicken.  Take your minced thyme, parsley, and garlic, and add enough olive oil to make a paste, which should be about 1/4 of a cup of oil.  Add 1 teaspoon of pepper to your paste.  I do not add salt, but you are certainly welcome to add some (would recommend 1 teaspoon if you’re going to go this route).

Give the chicken a bath and clean out the interior.  Pat dry and season the cavity with a good pinch of salt and pepper.  Slice the lemon and stuff it inside the cavity.

Next, get your fingers under the skin on the breast side and back side of the chicken, getting it ready to be able to schmear your paste under the skin.  Then, go for it, schmear it under the skin and all over the exterior.

Set the chicken, post-schmear, into a well-oiled baking dish (at least 9 inches x 13 inches) and then pop it in the oven.  I generally cover the bird at first with foil.

While your chicken is baking, get your veggies ready.  Peel and cut them into thick chunks.  Remember, they’re going to be in the oven alongside your tasty chicken for at least 30 minutes, so don’t make the chunks too small.

After 30 minutes of the chicken baking, throw the veggies into the same dish as the chicken to let them roast.  Then 10 minutes later, take off the foil to let the chicken brown beautifully.  The total baking time should be approximately 1 hour and 10 to 15 minutes.  If you have a thermometer, stick it in the thick part of the thigh and wait until the temperature reads 165 degrees.

Once it’s come to the right temperature, take it out and cover for about 10 minutes.  Then, feast.

But wait!  Don’t throw away that lovely carcass once you’re done!  Make some chicken broth!

Recipe for Maklouba: Upside Down Chicken and Eggplant Dish | Legal Nomads

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Recipe for Maklouba: Upside Down Chicken and Eggplant Dish | Legal Nomads.

Taking inspiration from this recipe posted on the Legal Nomads website, I made Jordanian Maklouba, which literally means “upside down”.  This dish was fantastic and is marked by the use of baharat or “7 spices” – a happy marriage of, you guessed it, 7 spices.  I ended up omitting the eggplant from this recipe, but it was still delicious, nonetheless, and my entire house smelled like a wonderful spice market.  I think you can easily make this into a vegetarian recipe by leaving out the meat entirely and using vegetable stock to cook the rice.  The next time I make this recipe I plan to roast the eggplant and cauliflower to add a nice sweetness to the dish.

Once building my pot, it was filled to the brim and looked like this:

As I realized, there is an art to making maklouba.  You can be very creative and make fun patterns with your veggies.  I added carrots to the bottom for some flair.

I definitely recommend using a large enough plate to flip the maklouba from the pot, which I foolishly did not do here.

To make 1 cup of the baharat, I mixed the following:

  • 2 tablespoons of black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of ground coriander
  • 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon of ground cloves
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons of ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom
  • 2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg
  • 2 tablespoons of paprika

The maklouba recipe only calls for 1 tablespoon of baharat so I stored the remainder in an air-tight container to be used again for my next round of maklouba.