Middle Eastern Chicken Salad

MIDDLE EASTERN CHICKEN SALAD w/ DILL PICKLE TAHINI DRESSING

A few weeks ago I posted a chicken shawarma recipe that didn't get so much internet love, but it just so happened that as the week wound down I had all the right ingredients at home to give it another go.  I'll make the same case as I did then for the pickle really being the essential ingredient in a good shawarma-anything, and in this case it makes a quirky appearance in the dill pickle tahini dressing.  At first I was ready to try dicing up a pickle and tossing it into the tabbouleh, but as I was blending the dressing the pickle was right there and I just shoved it right in to get blended.  I'm pretty pleased with how that impulse turned out, and now I'm hoping to see pickle-flavored hummus on grocery store shelves sometime soon.  

There are a few upgrades and time-savers for this recipe.  First, I used lean chicken breast, but if your primary goal is an authentic shawarma then use thighs (or just lamb).  Mandy B. over there at Lady & Pups made an amazing-looking "halal truck" plate this week and she specifically called for meat of no less than twenty percent fat - and that's what makes those New York City halal truck so good after a night out.  To save time, and money on those pricey jars of tahini, you could easily make the dressing with some packaged store-bought hummus.  Just blend it with the pickle, pickle juice, lemon juice, spices, yogurt, and olive oil to thin it out and spunk it up.  If you are going the scratch-made route, any soft bean will do instead of cannellini beans.  While obviously chickpeas are a traditional choice, I don't have a good enough blender to get those shells to smooth out to my liking.  So red, or even black, beans would be just fine.

As a warning, if you like both dill pickles and hummus, the dressing is a little addicting.  There was a good 3/4 cup left over that I just ate straight-up by the spoon full.  If you have a bit more self control then it will make a great veggie dip.

Edamame Falafel and Red Bean Hummus

This was a really fun meal to dream up and transform into a tasty dish, so I'm particularly excited to share it with you, loyal blog followers (new and old).

Overall, I'm really drawn fusion and mash-ups because it signifies the world we live in today - cultural diffusion on a global scale.  As I've written about many times on the blog before, I love to teach about culture and cultural diffusion through food, and the lesson here is definitely that we live in a world of no cultural boundaries.  Studying the anthropology and geography of food consumption practices fascinates me, and perhaps in retirement I'll go back to school and write a thesis about it.

The original idea was an edamame burger, but conjuring up appropriately Asian toppings was leaving me in a creative desert.  While grocery shopping it occurred to me to try falafel instead, as the burger patty was sort of leading in that direction.  The falafel concept was much more inspiring for carrying the fusion theme through to all the accoutrements of the dish.  Of course, many others got to the idea of edamame falafel before me, so I hope the addition of the red bean hummus and kimchi tabbouleh offers some originality here and allows for the "fusion" concept to permeate the whole meal.

You could certainly pair this alternative falafel with traditional versions of hummus and tabbouleh and it would still taste great.  Or,  feel free to just take away from this post an awesome hummus recipe that uses the red beans so common to Asian cuisine. 

Middle Eastern Stuffed Onions

In the last few months I've watched two impressive documentaries focused on the passing on of an acclaimed restaurant from father to son.  Side-by-side the documentaries are a perfect cultural Venn Diagram around the craft of food in the East and/or West.  The first was Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which documents the career and retirement of famous chef Jiro Ono as he prepares to hand his understated, but globally recognized Tokyo sushi bar over to his oldest son, Yoshikazu.  The second was the French documentary Step Up to the Plate (Entre les Bras), which tells a nearly identical story line about Michel Bras and his oldest son, Sébastien (except that Bras' restaurant is a lot less understated). 

While I saw the second film about three months after the first, I highly recommend watching them one after another.  In fact, I'd like to watch Jiro again just to do a closer cultural comparison.  Obviously, both films honor the incredible careers of Ono and Bras, but what I found most interesting were the comparison between Yoshikazu and Séba...both middle-aged men who diligently worked to become equally talented enough to open their own successful restaurants, if they had chosen a more independent path.  In Japan it is traditional for the eldest son to inherit his father's business, and Séba seems inspired by that despite a very contrasting Western worldview that glorifies the self-made man.  But despite Japanese tradition, or simply Séba's sense of duty, both documentaries acutely depict the intense amount of pressure both sons feel as they follow in their fathers' footsteps.  Each son must walk the extremely fine line that allows them to develop their own culinary identities while adhering to the culinary traditions of their family and culture.  The outcome for both is artistic mastery, I think.

If the cultural context of each film doesn't interest you so much, they're both very good food documentaries in their own right.  The amount of care and craftsmanship taken with the ingredients and cooking process is really well filmed.  Step Up to the Plate, in particular, highlights contemporary French cuisine as an intensive design process from the market to the plate.  

One dish Sébastien Bras creates, in particular, inspired this post...very loosely.  He roasted a whole onion, carefully removed the outer layers, and stuffed it with some sort of creamy, cheesy, Frenchy filling.  I was mostly impressed with how beautiful the roasted onion looked.  However, lacking the hours it would have taken to roast a whole onion, I opted for a faster method of cooking it whole.  And, lacking the desire to consume such a rich dish, I made a Middle Eastern filling of barley, chickpeas, and vegetables instead.  So, yes, quite a loose inspiration.  Inspiration, nonetheless.

Mediterranean Turkey Burger

Mediterranean Turkey Burger with Farro Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Spiced Chickpeas

There are a lot of components here, but the burger, tzatziki, and chickpeas all go very well together.  If you're not into the bitter flavor of tabbouleh, skip it and stuff everything else in a pita.