May 255 min read

Chicken with tahini, honey and ginger glaze and roasted peppers

This chicken with tahini, honey and ginger glaze and roasted peppers, served with a bulgar wheat side dish and fruity salad has a vibe of the Eastern Mediterranean, but there's nothing traditional about it at all. It's the result of trawling the fridge...

Feels like...

There's nothing "traditional" about this dish. Sure, it has an Eastern Mediterranean vibe—a little whiff of Levantine cooking here, a little nod to Turkish cuisine there—but it's utterly frauthentic; partly an invention resulting from my zero food waste goals.

My fridge is often like a crossword puzzle: what can we cook with what's in here before it goes off? I should probably articulate this "waste not, want not" mentality a little more transparently. Sure, some of it is from the dour Protestantism of my father. But it comes equally from my mother. When she waded into the transmission of ethics and morality with her kids, she could be alarmingly insightful. Biafra? You might have to Google it. I will nae ever need to do that, just as I know her experience of it bubbled around in her brain, even when she was off her tits. So, yes, I was raised knowing that even food is not a UN-declared universal right. I do not waste food out of a respect for humanity instilled in me as a nipper.

This recipe was born during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown. Now I'm revisiting it in more proactive, positive circumstances, enjoying it in the sun.

Club Med

There's an intentional Eastern Mediterranean vibe to this one. Don't mistake that for any claims of "traditional" or "authentic". For example, I'm not calling the side dish tabouleh. Decades ago, a Turkish colleague fiercely explained that real tabouleh is "green with grains". Clearly the ratios are inverted in this side dish.

Similarly, I'm using iceberg lettuce—something that wasn't even widely available in Europe until possibly the 1980s—in the salad. Nae problem: it works.

This recipe is for 2 adults, though the photos are actually for the version for one person.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

Make sure you use the right kind of bulgar wheat. In this case it really cannot be the fine kind. It should be the medium-coarse or coarse kind.

The chicken in this recipe is skinless. If you want to use skin-on chicken, you will need factor that into an extended cooking time

You don't need to use the iceberg lettuce I'm using here. But, do not use a lettuce that is too strongly flavoured e.g. rocket It will rather defeat the purpose of the exercise. You'd actually better off using finely sliced cabbage

Shopping list

for the chicken with tahini, honey and ginger glaze

2 skinless chicken breasts
1 large fresh red bell pepper, sliced vertically into 2 to 3mm batons
1 medium red onion (or brown)
Approx. 2 thumb's lengths of root ginger, peeled
2 tbspns tahini
2 tbspns chopped smoked garlic (or fresh garlic)
2 tbspns honey
1 tspn fennel seeds
The juice and zest of a large fresh lemon
2 tspns dried oregano
A little virgin olive oil—approx. 1tbspn
2 tspns brown sugar
1 tbspn balsamico vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

for the bulgar wheat side dish

1 cup medium-coarse cracked bulgar wheat
A generous clutch of flat leaf parsley, washed, drained and chopped
2 very ripe tomatoes, finely cubed
3 cloves of fresh garlic, finely chopped
3 echalion shalllots (or an onion), finely cubed
1tspn dried chilli flakes
Juice of 1 fresh lemon
Approx. 1tbspn balsamico vinegar
Approx. 1tbspn extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

for the salad

½ a small iceberg lettuce, sliced
1 large fresh ripe orange, peeled and broken into segments
¼ a large cucumber; cubed
1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced
balsamico and extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to preference

Cooking Method

the chicken with tahini, honey and ginger glaze

Make your glaze first, since it also functions as a marinade. In a food processor or mini-chopper, first chop the garlic, ginger and onion. Add the lemon juice and olive oil, followed by the oregano. Add the tahini, balsamic and honey, chopping into a fairly fluid paste, adding a smidgen more balsamic vinegar, only if needed
Using a pastry brush or clean fingers, liberally baste the chicken breasts on all sides and place in a sealable storage dish. Add the sliced bell pepper into the bowl containing the glaze and mix until coated. Place these batons on top of the chicken in the storage dish. Seal and marinade in the fridge for at least 5 hours.
When you wish to serve your dish and all the other elements (see below) are prepared, place the chicken breasts on a non-stick baking tray. Pile the peppers over the chicken and roast in a hot pre-heated oven (250°C) for approx. 20mins or until optimally cooked, turning halfway through, but always piling the peppers on top. Yes, you can grill it, but this takes a lot more attention unless you really like blackened finishes
Once cooked to your desired degree of roasting, take to table and serve with the bulgar wheat side dish and salad

the bulgar wheat side dish

You can do this in advance—up to 2 days in advance. You don't need to cook cracked bulgar wheat because it's already cooked, a bit like couscous. Place the cracked bulgar wheat into a suitable heat-proof bowl. Pour in boiling water until the bulgar wheat is fully submerged—the water level should fully cover the bulgar wheat by about 2cm. Simply leave for about 35mins, checking halfway through to see whether you need to add additional boiling water. NB: if the bulgar wheat doesn't feel the appropriate texture when all the liquid has been absorbed, microwave it for no more than 1min (900W) at full power and allow to cool
Add the chopped parsley, shallots and tomatoes and gently stir in
Dress with the lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil and dried chill flakes
Season with salt and pepper just before serving

the salad

Okay, so not gonna mansplain how to make a salad. My only tip it to make sure you add all of the juice from the orange to the salad. Dress, then decant to individual bowls or take to table in a large salad bowl.

Alternatives

This works wonderfully as a vegan dish—the vegetarian question is secondary since it involves no other animal products. Slice aubergines vertically in slices at least 3cm thick and treat exactly as the chicken in the recipe above, though, oddly, the aubergine version might take a little longer to cook to perfection.

On the pescatarian front, I confess that I adore this dish with tuna or swordfish, again, treated exactly as the chicken in the recipe above, but only roasted for about half the cooking time.

Pairings

I love this dish with a cold beer—not my go-to tipple. Mostly I love it with a cold, classic Duvel. But, that has so obviously to do with my fascination with Robert II, Count of Flanders, that it needs to be immediately excluded. Outside of my personal stuff, it's a great pairing.

Bizarrely, this is a dish I've seldom had with wine, and certainly not anything memorable. During the COVID-19 first lockdown, I remember it worked very well with a mix of lemon and pomegranate juice in soda water on ice. As usual, we'll need to defer to Karel on the wine front.