Musakhan Chicken and Pita Bread

Well guys, I think a tradition has been established!  This past Wednesday, Emily and Drew came over and we had cooking night again.  On the menu this time was Musakhan Chicken and Pita Bread.  It's a traditional Palestinian dish and definitely one that I'll be making again.  This meal was surprisingly quick and had a great turn out.  The pita bread took the longest, but mostly only because of the rise time.  It was easy enough to get started and then do something else while it was rising though.  Once we started preparing the chicken, it only took a little over half an hour to put together.  The flavor was delicious, full of cumin and peppery goodness with just a hint of cinnamon.

 Here are the recipes that we used, both from Paul Gayler's Meditarranean Cook.

Pita Bread, or khoubz arabieh
Ingredients:

• 1 oz. fresh yeast
• pinch of sugar (We discovered that we didn't have sugar at the last minute, so we used a good squeeze of honey instead!)
• 1 3/4 cups warm water
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• sunflower oil for greasing (Our HEB didn't have sunflower oil, so we just used olive oil!)

Method

1. In a bowl, mix the yeast with the sugar and 4 tbsp. of the water and leave the liquid to become bubbly about 10-15 minutes.  Mix the flour and salt in a  mixing bowl, make a well in the center, add the yeast mixture, and then work into a dough with the remaining water to firm consistency.  Knead for 10 minutes.
2. When the dough is smooth and pliable, shape into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel, and set aside in a warm place for 1-1-1/2 hours or until doubled in volume.
3. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F or to its highest setting.  Turn out the dough onto a floured surface.  Punch down the dough, then divide into eight equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball, dust with flour, place on a board, cover with a dry dish towel, and proof for another 15 minutes.
4. Grease three large cookie sheets lightly with oil and place in a hot oven for 5 minutes.  Roll out each ball of dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a rough circle around 6 in. in diameter.  Transfer two or three at a time to a hot cookie sheet.  Cook in the oven for about 6 minutes until puffed up but still quite pale in color.  Repeat with the remaining pitas, cooking them a few at a time.
5. Place on a cooling rack, then cover with a dish towel to keep them soft.

Musakhan Chicken

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 2 onions, sliced
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp. sumac (Again, our HEB didn't have sumac, but a little Internet research told us that we could use 3 tbsp. paprika and a good squeeze of lemon juice as a substitute!)
• 2 3/4 cups chicken stock
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 2 tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped
• 4 pita breads or shirak (Shirak is an Israeli flatbread.)

Method

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Season the chicken and add to the pan; cook for 1-2 minutes until golden.  Remove to one side.
2. Add the onions to the pan, cook for 5-10 minutes until golden, then add the cinnamon and sumac.  (Again, we added the paprika and lemon juice here.) Return the chicken to the pan, add the stock, and bring to a boil; cook for 5 minutes.
3. Remove and cut up the chicken into bite size pieces; place in a bowl and squeese the lemon juice on top.  Add the pine nuts and cilantro.
4. Cut the pita breads in half lengthwise and fill with the chicken and pan juices.