FEAST OF THE BIRDS

وليمة الطير

Thanksgiving Stuffed Bird, Iraqi Style

Sorry birds! It is us humans who are feasting, but you will be remembered in good health, I am sure.

Dijaj Mahshi دجاج محشي

  

Surprise your turkey this Thanksgiving and make it happy with a delicious aromatic stuffing ‘Iraqi style.' Besides the cavity, the bird is stuffed underneath the entire skin, as well. A bonus: The skin will come out scrumptiously crisp and flavorful. Worth trying! 

I learnt this beautiful way of stuffing chicken from my friends in Mosul, in northern Iraq. I was invited to dinner, and there it was in the middle of the table an impressively plump bird, I thought it was a duck at first, and was quite amused to learn that it was just an ordinary chicken given the royal treatment.

Later on, I discovered, so much to my surprise, that stuffing chicken between the skin and the meat is not an entirely modern technique. In the 13th-century Andalusian cookbook Anwa’ al-Saydala (انواع الصيدلة في الوان الاطعمة), there is a chicken recipe called Al-dajaj al-‘Abbasi الدجاج العباسي (Abbasid chicken), which as the name indicates, is a loan dish from the medieval Baghdadi cuisine. The initial instruction in the recipe is to stuff the chicken between the skin and the meat, as well as the cavity (p. 23). 

More details on this method are given in the 13^th-century Syrian cookbook Al-Wusla ila'l-Habeeb الوصلة الى الحبيب في وصف الطيبات والطيب (by Ibn al-‘Adeem 2: 525--26). After the chicken is dipped in hot water and feathers removed, and before opening it up, the skin was separated from the meat by blowing very hard through the neck. For still undetached areas, a skewer was pushed through the neck, and the skin was carefully separated.

Abbasid chicken, detail from 'Aja'ib al-Makhluqat (13th-century), F 1954.101, Smithsonian Institution  

Here is the recipe. Amounts are for a small turkey or a large plump chicken:    

Mixture for rubbing the bird:

½ cup vinegar

1 tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon crushed coriander seeds

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

For the stuffing:

2 tablespoons oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, grated

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ cup each of frozen peas, diced carrots, and chopped mushrooms

1 cup diced potatoes browned in 1 tablespoon oil

½ cup raisins

½ cup toasted slivered almonds

2 teaspoons baharat (use link for recipe), or garam masala

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cardamom

½ teaspoon of each cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, and chili pepper (or more chili)

2 cups uncooked rice

½ cup yogurt, for coating the bird

Preheat oven 425°F

Chicken before stuffing

1. To prepare the bird:
Wash it and rub it with vinegar and salt inside and out and let it stand for 30 minutes. Drain and dry. Then rub it with lemon juice. Mix the spices and rub them onto the bird inside and out, and then place it, bottom down, in a colander fitted on a bowl, at room temperature, until ready for stuffing.

2. In a large skillet, saute onion in the oil until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and turmeric in the last minute. Add peas, carrots, and mushrooms. Pour in about ¾ cup hot water and simmer on medium heat about 10 minutes, or until liquid evaporates. Mix in browned potatoes, raisins, almonds, garam masala (baharat), salt, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, and chili pepper.

3. Cook plain white rice until just done, the grains should still be firm and separated. Gently fold it with the vegetable mixture.

3. To stuff the bird:
Hold the bird with one hand and with the fingers of the other, starting with the neck part, separate skin from flesh, going down slowly all the way to the thighs, taking care not to pierce the skin with your nails. This will create a pocket to hold the stuffing.   

Pat the cavities dry with white paper towels and fill the regular belly cavity very well with the stuffing (the rice is already cooked and would not expand). Sew the cavity closed. Then fill the pocket you have created with as much filling as it can hold, pushing the filling down to the thighs, the breast area, the wings, and the back. Sew the neck opening closed to prevent filling from coming out. Discard any filling that came into contact with the uncooked bird while filling it.

Place the prepared bird on a greased broiler pan and coat it with yogurt. Bake in the preheated oven for the first 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F, and continue baking (allow 30 minutes for each pound). While bird is roasting, baste it occasionally with the dripping juices until it is nicely browned. Let it rest for about 15 minutes before carving. Remove threads and serve on a platter surrounded with any remaining stuffing.

Enjoy!

Lahm b-'Ajeen

Arabian Counterpart of Italian Pizza

لحم بعجين

It is what it literally means—‘meat with dough’. Well-loved carryout food in the Levant and Iraq, simple, practical and delicious. Equally ubiquitous in Turkey, where it is called lahmacun, which no doubt is a direct borrowing of the Arabic, etymologically and culinarily. 

Lahm b-'ajeen apparently had a long history in the Arab regions, and it seems to have first originated in the Levant. The earliest recipe I could lay my hands on occurs in 13th-century Aleppan cookbook Al-Wusla ila ‘l-Habeeb (الوصلة الى الحبيب في وصف الطيبات والطيب) written by the well-known Syrian historian Ibn Al-'Adeem (d. 1262). The recipe is just one line long, but it certainly points to our dish, "Meat is cut, spread on flattened discs of dough, and then put in the brick oven furn.” (p. 2:556)  

However, in Iraq this food seems to have been kept on the back burner for a long while. When I was still a kid in Baghdad, not many people knew of it. We used to get it by order from the neighborhood bakery owned by an Armenian, but his version was very basic. The topping consisted of just meat, onions, salt, and black pepper. By the seventies, though, popularity of this delicious bread picked up and many small bakeries specialized in making it were opened in the major cities of Iraq to meet the increasing demand. It comes out of their brick ovens sizzling hot, lusciously moist and tender, and dripping with the melted fat of meat. Delicious surely, but unfortunately too greasy.  

This food is too good to pass, and why should we. We can make it  ourselves, equally delicious but much healthier. It is indeed fun to make but definitely not a dish to whip in 30 minutes. But I assure you it would be time well invested.

Recipe for making lahm b-'ajeen:   

First we need to prepare the dough (the 'ajeen part):

2 tablespoons dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

½ cup warm water

9 cups (2¼ pounds) bread flour

1 tablespoon salt

½ cup oil

3 cups warm water

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in ½ cup warm water, set aside for 5 minutes.

2. Put flour and salt in a big bowl. Make a well in the middle, and pour yeast mixture along with oil and water. With a wooden spoon, incorporate liquids into flour in a circular movement. With slightly oiled hands, knead dough for about 5 minutes. The final dough should be of medium consistency. Oil dough on both sides and set it aside, covered, in a warm draft-free place for 45 minutes or until well risen. 

Now to the meat part (lahm):

  

While waiting for the dough to rise, prepare the topping:

3 medium onions (about 2 cups), finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 heaping tablespoons tomato paste (one 6-ounce can)

1½ - 2 pounds ground lean meat (beef or lamb, or a mix of both)

¾ cup chopped parsley

2 medium tomatoes (about 1½ cups), finely chopped

1 tablespoon pomegranate syrup (may use lemon juice instead)

2 teaspoons baharat (spice mix, follow link for recipe)

2 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon chili pepper, or to taste

Sauté onion in oil, about 5 minutes (just enough to soften it), and then stir in tomato paste until it emits a nice aroma, about a minute. Set aside until it cools down to room temperature. Then mix in the rest of the topping ingredients.     

Now, it's shape and bake time: 

1. Position one of the oven shelves at the lowest level if oven is electric, and put on it a pizza stone or an inverted baking sheet. If oven is gas, remove the lowest shelf, and place the pizza stone right on the oven floor. Position the second shelf at the highest level, and preheat oven 420°F.  

2. As soon as dough rises, punch it down and divide it into 20 pieces, which you shape into neat balls by tucking in the sides with slightly oiled hands. Place portions on a lightly-oiled surface..

3. Since the dough does not need to rise again, you can start shaping and baking right away. Lightly cover work surface and rolling pin with olive oil, and roll out a dough portion into a disc about 7 inches in diameter (or rectangle), about ⅛ inch thick. Place the flattened dough on a piece of parchment paper, a little bigger than the dough disc. Spread about ¼ cup  of the meat mix on it. It should cover the surface in a thin layer, leaving a slight border uncovered. Lightly brush uncovered border with olive oil. (If parchment paper is not available, use greased baking sheets).



4. Immediately, and with the help of a small bread peel (or a solid piece of cardboard or wood or anything similar). Slide the disc into the hot stone or the inverted baking sheet. Dough is not supposed to puff like pita bread, and it will take about 8 minutes to bake. You can bake 2 or 3 at a time depending on oven or pizza stone size. While this batch is baking, start working on the other batches. You might transfer half-baked ones to the upper shelf, and put some new ones on lower shelf to expedite the procedure.  

           

6. As soon as you take the baked ones out of the oven, stack them with the parchment paper, in a big paper bag, lined with a kitchen towel or paper napkins, and partially close the bag. Or use a large container (see photo to your right). The parchment paper will prevent the topping from sticking to the bottom of the piece above it.

Best when eaten hot right from the oven, but also good at room temperature. Any leftovers may be refrigerated or frozen, and warmed up in the oven.