Hello friends!
About 10 years ago, I had a broiled chicken dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Lexington, KY called Aladdin's. The place has since gone out of business. For whatever reason this week, I've been thinking about the chicken.
I'm pretty sure it was called Athenian Broiled Chicken. It didn't seem particularly "Greek" to me though, and the restaurant served all Middle Eastern foods--shish kebabs, falafel, fatoosh...
I seldom order chicken when I eat out because I make it so often at home. My dad ordered the dish the first time we were there. I tasted it and it was amazing! Whenever we went back, I ordered it. It was served with rice and little pieces of pickled vegetables.
This week I tried to re-create the dish, and something's missing. This is where I need your help.
I made the dish with Moroccan spice blend, olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic. It was close, but something wasn't bitter enough. The lemon juice was right, I think. But there was something else in the spices that I missed. Today, I bought sumac and added it to the chicken when I warmed up a piece. The missing ingredient isn't sumac.
The taste I'm looking for was bitter but zingy. As you ate the chicken and rice, your mouth almost felt like it was drying. I know that sounds unpleasant, but the chicken from Aladdin's was amazing. It was juicy on the inside, crisp on the outside--which I captured. But the spices made it taste like nothing I'd ever had.
The rice had the same dry, bitter spice in it. Or maybe it was the pickled veggies on top of the rice that had dripped the flavor onto the rice.
I'll be honest--I'm more a pastry person. I love to cook and bake, but I don't know much about Middle Eastern food. Hopefully one of you uses the exotic spices that I'm unfamiliar with more often and can help. That chicken makes me think of being young and dinner with my Dad.
Much thanks!