A table spread of love
It’s no secret that I love to cook for my friends. I kind of go all out in spoiling them, and I love to see joy on their faces, hear their laughter, and to feel the MMMMMMing of their happily full bellies.
Last week was one of those evenings. Beautiful August weather with plenty of sunshine, so I decided to invite plenty of flavours, colours and textures.
Please keep in mind that the following recipes are not AIP-friendly. These recipes host nightshades (eg. tomatoes, eggplant, white potato), nuts and seeds (almond yoghurt), legumes and grains (red lentils, rice, pita breads), and goat cheese.
Some of these things, such as the pitas with zataar spice, were exclusively for my friends and not for myself. I like to spoil my friends with things I know they can eat, just like how they spoil me with foods I can eat (as opposed to not, which is a long list!). Needless to say, I will offer suggestions for substitutions where possible, in the following select recipes.
See below for the baked chicken dish. Check out my other Mediterranean recipes created for this delicious meal, in the following posts:
Tzatziki dip with fresh mint (vegan)
Red lentil falafels (gluten-free)
Baked chicken with pindjur and olives
For the amount of flavour this Mediterranean-style dish boasts, you would think that is a complicated dish to make – on the contrary! It’s just your average baked chicken and veg but with a variation in the condiments.
First off, you can add any kind of olive if you like, but the ones I used were green olives mixed with small pieces of preserved lemon. This obviously gave the olives a lemony flavour, and added a zesty note to the dish overall, without being overbearing. Don’t have access to preserved lemon? No problem! Just add small pieces of fresh lemon peel or zest (scrub and wash the lemon beforehand).
Pindjur is a popular Macedonian vegetable spread or sauce, for which you may have seen variations of in traditional recipes from other cultures. You can find it in places like Turkey, Serbia and Bulgaria, for example. It contains the following: red peppers, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, oil, sugar, garlic, salt, parsley, vinegar and sometimes hot pepper, too. I bought this product from my local generic grocery store, but you can find variations of it online, too, from multiple brands.
Note that if you are following the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet and have eliminated nightshade vegetables, you can use this recipe without the Pindjur vegetable spread. Simply replace this with other ingredients such as oregano, thyme and/or rosemary. I would chop up these herbs into a bit of olive oil with crushed garlic and lemon juice, to add to the chicken. Voilà !
Baked chicken with pindjur and olives
Equipment
- 1 Cast iron cookware, casserole dish 3L Le Creuset French oven is what I used, as featured in the photo
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 white (Spanish) onion finely chopped
- 2 chicken legs with bone and skin or use whole chicken, chicken breast, etc…
- 4-6 potato cubed (sweet potato ok too)
- 3-4 carrot roughly chopped
- 1 cup olives I used green olives marinated with lemon confit (pickled lemon), and included these lemon pieces in the dish
- 1 tbsp garlic finely chopped, or garlic scape pesto
- 3 tbsp pindjur vegetable spread see notes
Instructions
- Chop and prepare all ingredients as needed. Quantities can vary based on the size of your dish or the number of servings desired.
- Begin cooking the onions, potatoes and garlic together for a few minutes, until onions are golden.
- Add the chicken legs (or other pieces) and cook each piece on both sides.
- Add carrots and olives with pickled lemon pieces, and spread some of the pindjur sauce over the chicken.
- Cook in the oven or on the stove for an hour on medium-low heat. Use a lid or cover for extra sauce for the meal.
- Optional to add the dish to broil in the oven for the last 10 minutes or so, to make the chicken a little crispy and reduce some of the moisture content (sauce). Wait for the dish to cool about 10-15 minutes before serving.
A Pink Pairing
The perfect beverage to pair with this meal – and it’s pink! Have you tried my summer rose and hibiscus lemonade, yet?
Delicious, stock-full with antioxidants, and has a lovely cooling effect!
Check out this recipe here: Rose Hibiscus Lemonade
