Food Friday from somewhere along the Silk Road

This morning as I began to mix up the spices for my chicken I decided to pretend that I was a Grandma who came from somewhere in the Middle East. A couple of summers ago my sister took me to an Iraqi restaurant in Lowell, MA and I understood in my mouth the connection between the food of India and the food of the Middle East. So, perhaps I wasn’t exactly a grandma from Iraq but I was playing with that blend of flavors.

So there was lots of turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper and sumac and cumin mixed together. There may have been some other spices in the bowl but I can’t for sure swear to what I added to the bowl.

 

I massaged the spices into the chicken, and a few hours later we ended up with this.

Two beautiful fragrant chickens. They are now cut up and sitting in the fridge waiting to be warmed up for dinner.

I also made potatoes. the fruit and vegetable pushcart guys are selling beautiful tomatoes so I bought some and roughly chopped them up, and added them to the potatoes along with a box of mushrooms and lots of black pepper and some olive oil.

I put the pan in the oven along with the chicken and let it cook along with the chicken.

After a while the top layer was all dried out.So I stirred it all up.

Stirring is actually the big secret for keeping oven roasting stuff juicy.

We are also eating a vaguely Asian cabbage salad.

It is dressed with sesame oil, rice vinegar and a bit of honey.I will add some chopped nuts before serving. This too is improved by an occasional stir.