Chicken

An 8–24-hour marination period is required here. This chicken tastes just as good cold as it does hot, making it perfect for everyday meals, formal dinners, and picnics. (Once cooked, if properly wrapped and refrigerated, the chicken will hold for 5–6 days.)

There is a whole family of Goan meat and chicken dishes that have in common the use of garlic, vinegar, and hot chilies—all of which help preserve the food and give it a slightly “pickled” feel. As in the case of the more famous vindaloos, the garlic and vinegar combination probably came from Portuguese culinary traditions—Goa was their colony for four hundred years or so. It was the Portuguese who introduced chilies to India in the late fifteenth century. Indians, already familiar with their own black pepper, took to them with a passion. The chilies used in Goa are often of the Kashmiri variety, which give off a very red color but are of medium heat. Each dish requires rather a lot of them and ends up being very hot and very red. I have used a mixture of cayenne and paprika. You can add more cayenne if you like. In Goa this is eaten with partially milled red-hulled rice. You could serve it with Plain Brown Rice, Plain Jasmine Rice, or Coconut Rice. Add vegetables and salads.

A karhai is an Indian wok (many anthropologists believe that the utensil actually originated in India), and this is a stir-fried dish. I like dark meat and prefer chicken thighs here, but lovers of white meat may use boned and skinned chicken breasts. Serve it with rice or Indian (or Middle Eastern) flatbreads. You could serve the Mushroom and Pea Curry on the side. You could also have this cold, even take it on a picnic.

I like to use bird’s-eye chilies here, but any fresh hot green chilies will do. Use only as much of the larger chilies as you think you can handle. I often make this when I am in a hurry, as it cooks fast. You could serve this with any rice dish. I like it with the Tomato Pullao. This is also great to take on picnics or serve at a summer lunch: fill pita bread pockets with this, spoon in a little Fresh Green Chutney, and eat!

A dish from the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, this quick stir-fry has all the wonderful spices used in the cooking of the Chettiyars, a trading community—lots of black pepper, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, cinnamon, and the split pea, urad dal. (Yellow split peas may be substituted for the urad dal. They will be used here in a very southern way, as a seasoning.) This dish has a 30-minute marinating period, but it cooks in about 7 minutes. It is a good idea to have all the spices measured out and ready, as the stir-frying is done quickly. I like this chicken with Basmati Rice with Lentils and a green vegetable.

Here is a soup of colonial, British-Indian origin, born in the early days of the Raj and a favorite among the dwindling mixed-race Anglo-Indian community of India. All the ingredients and seasonings are completely Indian. It is just the way it is served (in a soup plate) and eaten (with a soup spoon) that is British. This soup may be served at the start of a meal, but it may also be offered as the main course for a Sunday lunch, the way the Anglo-Indians do. At such times, plain rice is served on the side, with diners adding as much as is desired to their soup plates, a little at a time so as not to solidify the soup in one go. I like to give my guests individual bowls of rice so that a single large bowl of rice does not have to move around the table like a whirling dervish.

This Egyptian village dish usually made with pigeons (hamam) is just as good, and easier to make, with a good corn-fed chicken. Ferik is young green wheat which has been harvested before it is ripe and set alight between layers of straw. The moist young kernels are separated from the charred chaff and straw by threshing, then washed and dried and coarsely ground. There is a pleasant roughness and a lingering smoky flavor about this grain. You will find it (also spelled frika) in Middle Eastern stores. It needs to be washed in 2 or 3 changes of water.

Sour little red berries called barberries (zereshk in Persian) and yogurt give this chicken-and-rice dish an exciting flavor and texture. The woman who wrote out this recipe for me more than thirty years ago added a comment that it was the most famous and traditional of Iranian dishes.

This Iranian rice, a festive dish served at weddings, is as sumptuous as you get. You can see by its appearance why it is called “jeweled.” Iranian and Middle Eastern stores sell barberries (sour berries called zereshk), sugared orange peel, and slivered almonds and pistachios. Dried pitted sour cherries and cranberries can be found in some supermarkets.

Candied tangerine or orange peel is the sweet element in this festive Persian rice with carrots. Persian shops sell the candied peel, as well as slivered almonds and pistachios. To make the candied peel yourself, see the recipe that follows this one.

There is something very comforting about this homely Turkish pilaf in which the rice is cooked in the broth of the chicken. For an Arab version with pine nuts, flavored with cinnamon and cardamom, see the variation.

Armenian dishes are humble and rustic. This one is a party dish which combines everyday ingredients in a complex way. The serving is something of a ritual.

This was a regular at my aunt Régine’s dinner parties. It is similar to dishes featured in medieval manuals. The French would call it a galantine.

I have also made this Persian stuffing for Christmas turkey, using twice the amount.

Chicken with rice-and-ground-meat stuffing or hashwa is a classic festive dish of the Arab world. The old way was to boil the stuffed chicken first, then briefly roast it to give it a golden color. These days it is more common to cook the stuffing separately and to roast the chicken. For a large party you can make double the quantity, shape the stuffing in a mound in a large round oven dish, cover it with the cut-up pieces of chicken, then heat it through, covered with foil, before serving.

This Syrian dish is made with a type of pasta called lissan al assfour (bird’s tongues) which looks like large grains of rice. It cooks in the sauce from the chicken and acquires a rich, spicy flavor and light-brown color. You will find it in Middle Eastern stores as well as in the pasta section of supermarkets, where it is called “orzo.” An apricot sauce, salsat mishmisheya, sometimes accompanies the dish .

The last time I ate this famous Moroccan dish was in a restaurant in Paris where there was an evening of Arab poetry and tales accompanied by musicians. It was not the best example of the dish, but I always find it enjoyable. I love the special flavor of preserved lemons. At every vegetable market in North Africa, and now also in the south of France, you can see stalls laden with huge piles of soft lemons oozing with juice beside several varieties of olives. The two are often used together. The pulp of the preserved lemon is discarded, and the skin alone is used. The word mqualli alludes to the way the chicken is cooked, with oil and only a little water.

This multi-layered dish is complex and time-consuming, and I don’t expect many people to attempt it. But it is very important in the Arab world, especially in Syria and Lebanon. And it is one of those recipes which bring me a flood of memories. I had received a letter from a woman I did not know in Beirut saying that she would like to meet me and that she had recipes for me. It was the late Josephine Salam. On our first meeting—at Claridge’s tearoom, where a band played Noël Coward tunes—she brought me a bottle of orange-blossom water and a copper pan. She volunteered to come to my house and show me how to make fattet jaj. I got the ingredients, and we made so much that we had to call in the neighbors to eat. I saw her for many years after that, and we had many meals together. It was the time of the civil war in Lebanon, and I received through her an ongoing account of everyday life in the ravaged city. Her daughter Rana has become a conceptual artist. For her thesis at the Royal College of Art in London, she asked me to give a lecture on the history of Middle Eastern food. She filled the college with hangings announcing the event, with my portrait painted on by a cinema-poster painter in Egypt. She laid out foods and spices as in a souk, put on a tape of Egyptian street sounds and music, and offered Arab delicacies.

In Morocco they say that this dish, like many others, was brought back from Andalusia by the Moors after the Reconquista.

A magnificent dish, and a stunning example of the way Moroccans mix savory and sweet. Chicken pieces are first stewed with lemon juice and saffron, then baked with a topping of almonds and honey.