Yotam Ottolenghi’s marinated turkey breast with cumin, coriander, and white wine

Turkey isn’t just for Christmas dinner, and if you fancy something a little different to the traditional roast, try this fresher tasting alternative. It only uses the breast, so it's perfect if you're only 2-3 people.  This is from Yotam Ottolenghi's the cookbook. 

4 tbsp mint leaves (it really annoys me when recipes require teaspoons of a herb. One basil leaf is the size of – or bigger than – a teaspoon. Same for a mint leaf. I took a couple of springs, stripped and chopped them. 

4 tbsp parsley leaves (see above)

4 tbsp coriander leaves (and again)

1 garlic clove, peeled (one garlic clove? ONE??? Put in at least 2-3)

60 ml [about 3 oz] lemon juice (life is too short to measure out 60ml of lemon juice. Get your lemon and juice it.)

125 ml [about 4 oz] white wine (ditto; glug, glug and another glug for good measure)

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

about 1kg turkey breast

Either put all the ingredients except the turkey breast in a food processor or blender and blitz for 1-2 minutes to get a smooth marinade or mash it up using a pestle and mortar. This latter option reduces the amount of washing up! If you are going to use the pestle and mortar too, add the wine at the end, only. Doing it this way results in a more chunky marinade.

Ottolenghi's marinade for roast turkey

Put the turkey in a non-metallic container and pour the marinade over it. Massage the marinade into the meat, cover the container and leave in the fridge for 24 hours or however long you have (only up to 24 hours – please do not cook or eat anything, especially meat, that’s been basking in your fridge for a long time!).

As a complete aside, I heard some about competition thing on the radio once, where people had to ring in and complete the sentence “you know your marriage is in trouble when…”. One of the entrants was “you watch your husband prepare the Christmas turkey, and you're jealous as the turkey is getting more action than you.” Ho ho ho.

The turkey breast, marinading 

Anyway, when you’ve marinated your turkey, preheat your oven to 220°C. It starts getting a bit diva-ish at this stage, as you've the change the temperature every 15 minutes for the next half an hour, so put a reminder on your phone to keep yourself reminded.

Ottolenghi says to remove the turkey from the marinade (keep the marinade for later) and put it on a roasting tray. I kept the turkey in the marinade and cooked it the way he suggests: put it in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, then reduce them temperature to 200°C. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature again to 180°C. Cook it at this temperature until the turkey is done — another 30-45 minutes. To check, the turkey is cooked, stick a small knife all the way into the centre; it should come out hot. If the meat goes dark before it is ready, cover it will foil.

The roasted, marinated turkey breast

If you decide to remove the turkey from the marinade, put the leftover marinade in a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes, until reduced by about half. Taste and season with some more salt and pepper.

Remove the turkey from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice it thinly and serve with the warm sauce.

I've also tried the sumac chicken from this book. 

Yotam Ottolenghi’s roast chicken with za’atar, sumac and lemon

Like a lot of people living abroad, I prefer reading and cooking recipes from my mother tongue. An English friend lent me her copy of ‘Yotam Ottolenghi: The Cookbook’ a few weeks ago and I drooled over the recipes. I quickly realised however, that I had never even heard of at least one ingredient in most of them.

Yotam Ottolonghi's roast chicken with za'atar, sumac and lemon

Knowing how difficult it can be to find even simple, everyday (in Ireland and the UK) ingredients in Belgian supermarkets, I wondered if I’d be able to find some of these really exotic ones. So I decided to cook at least one recipe using ‘locally-sourced’ ingredients. I figured this couldn’t be too difficult given Belgium’s multi-ethnic population make-up, all I needed was the time to go hunting and knowing where to look. I ran out of time though as the chicken I’d bought needed to be cooked, and kind of cheated by going to mmmmh on the Chaussée de Charleroi, 92 and found the two ingredients I was missing: za’atar and sumac.

Sumac is a tree/shrub, the fruits of which are ground into a deep-red or purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat.

Za’atar is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the oregano, basil thyme and savory family. It is also (confusingly) a condiment made from the dried herb(s), mixed with sesame seeds, dried sumac, and often salt, as well as other spices (thanks Wikipedia for these definitions). Both types are used throughout the Middle East.  I used the condiment version.

So… to work.

1 chicken of your preference (organic, free-range, none of the above, whatever you like)

2 red onions, thinly sliced (I quartered mine, rebel that I am)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

4 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

1½ teaspoons ground allspice (I’d none, so I used smoked paprika which is not a substitute for allspice)

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon sumac

1 lemon, thinly sliced

200 ml chicken stock

1½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons za’atar

I combined all the spices, except the za’atar, in a bowl with the garlic and the olive oil, and rubbed this into the chicken skin. I left this to marinade for a couple of hours.

When you’re ready to cook, heat your oven to 200°C. I filled the bottom of the roasting dish with the 200ml of chicken stock, the quartered onions and put the slices of lemon all over the chicken skin. Sprinkle the za’atar over the lemons and pop the bird into your hot oven for 40 minutes to an hour, until the chicken is colored and cooked through. I had a 2.2kg chicken, and it took about 1 hour 20 minutes to cook.

The chicken was tasty, and smelled really good. It was a nice change from my usual roast chicken (lots of garlic and lemons, with some Vermouth in the roasting tin).  Next time I’d leave the za’atar spice mix off  - there was something about the taste I didn’t like as much as the sumac, which was delicious, and I’ve also used it in couscous. 

Domini Kemp also recreates some of Ottolenghi's recipes, this time from his new book, in todays Irish Times. 

Did you try cooking this chicken or something else from Ottolenghi's recipes, or using sumac or za'atar? Did you like it? What else have you tried using these or other unusual spices in?