Persian Entree
GRILLED SAFFRON CHICKEN
(Joojeh Kabab)
INGREDIENTS
1 onion
1/2 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 gram (1/28 ounce) teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 chicken breasts (2 pounds)
3 medium tomatoes
basmati rice (optional)
naan bread (optional)
SPECIAL UTENSIL
metal skewers
outdoor grill
PREPARATION
Grate or dice onion. Add onion, lime juice, olive oil, pepper, red pepper powder, saffron, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix well with whisk to make marinade. Cut chicken breasts into 1 ½” cubes. Add chicken cubes to mixing bowl. Turn chicken cubes until they are completely coated with marinade. Cover with lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for about 8 hours.
Take long nap or have a nice sleep. Dream about being a pirate, becoming a monarch, or being the first person to set foot on Mars.
Wake up. Thread chicken cubes onto metal skewers. Coat tomatoes with marinade. Thread tomatoes onto its own skewer. Preheat grill to on high. Barbecue chicken for 5-to-10 minutes. Turn chicken skewers over and barbecue for another 5-to-10 minutes. (Don’t overcook as chicken will become dry. Grill times vary wildly between grill. Check constantly). Grill tomatoes for 5 minutes then make a 1/4th turn with its skewer. Repeat 3 more times for a total of 20 minutes or until skin cracks on all sides. (Again, monitor this carefully.)
Serve with basmati rice or naan bread.
TIDBITS
1) During President Johnson’s administration, the war in Vietnam escalated dramatically, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, the Civil Rights Act passed, and riots erupted in many American cities. President Johnson needed time to get away from the daily stress of his office and so added barbecues to the White House roof.
2) Decades later, anti-aircraft missiles would be added to the roof of the White House to protect its barbecues.
3) America has the world’s largest number of barbecues.
4) It also has the world’s most powerful military.
5) It has to. The world wants America’s barbecues.
6) It’s not an entirely stable situation.
7) That’s why in 2003, America embarked on a barbecue-treaty signing spree with nations around the world. The first such treaty, Oil for Barbecue, with Saudi Arabia was instant success and provided the blueprint for future Barbecue Diplomacy.
8) There is a lot of sand in Saudi Arabia. However, there are a quite a lot of dinosaurs fossils in America.
9) No one knows for sure if dinosaurs had barbecues. There are no fossil records to support or deny such a hypothesis.
10) Sauropods certainly never held barbecues. They had no opposable thumbs, essential to holding metal spatulas. Indeed, these dinosaurs possessed no hands at all, opting to involve with four feet instead. Sauropods rarely got invited to block-party barbecues as their extremely size, limited agility, and low-level intelligences meant they often stomped on the grills, ruining the festivities.
11) Oh, and sauropods were vegetarians. They wouldn’t eat the barbecued ribs their hosts prepared for them. Their carnivore hosts often took this culinary reticence for rudeness and killed the sauropods. Which provided more meat for the barbecues. The barbecue brachiosaurus ribs were to die to for. Which they did.
12) Faced with extinction from barbecue loving meat eaters such as the allosaurus, the sauropods evolve into bigger and bigger dinosaurs such as the diplodocus and the seismosaurus, so that they would become to big to fit on the existing Jurassic grills.
13) However, the succeeding Cretaceous period saw the rise of the giganotosaurus and the tyrannosaurus rex. These fierce predators loved sushi, preferring to eat their properly prepared and spice prey raw.
14) Barbecue use dwindled. Then a meteor hit the Earth 64 million years ago, extinguishing the dinosaurs and what little culinary expertise they possessed. But now, finally, barbecues are back. We live in a new, golden age.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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