Around the Passover Table (12 page)

Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemon

yield:
6 to 8 servings

For us, this moist, beautifully flavored chicken will always be the taste of Passover in Paris. A recipe for preserved lemons follows, if you need to prepare your own kosher-for-Passover version; start it about one week before the holiday.

Generous pinch of saffron threads

5 or 6 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

About 5 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon sweet paprika, smoked or regular

1 teaspoon ground cumin, preferably freshly toasted and ground

About 5 pounds skinless, bone-in chicken thighs and/or legs, all visible fat and gristle removed

2 cups grated onions (to make, peel, and quarter about 4 medium onions and pulse in a food processor)

2 cups chicken broth, preferably
homemade
, or good quality, low-sodium
purchased

1 cup good, brine-cured olives, rinsed, pitted, and coarsely chopped (choose green olives or ripe purple-brown ones, such as Kalamatas, Gaetas, or Alphonsos)

The peel of 2 preserved lemons, finely chopped (recipe follows)

About 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¹
⁄
₃
cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, plus additional for garnish

PREPARE
the marinade: crumble the saffron between your fingers into a small bowl. Stir in 2 tablespoons hot water and let soak for 10 minutes.

COMBINE
the garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil, about 1 teaspoon salt and
³
⁄
₄
teaspoon pepper (or to taste), the paprika, and cumin in a food processor, and pulse to chop well. Add the saffron water and process until pasty.

PLACE
the chicken in a large, heavy resealable plastic bag, and spoon the marinade over. Shake the bag until all the pieces are bathing in the marinade. Seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or preferably overnight, occasionally shaking the bag or moving the pieces around to ensure the marinade is evenly distributed over all surfaces of the chicken.

BRING
the chicken to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 300°F.

SCRAPE
the marinade off the chicken and reserve it. Heat a large, wide Dutch oven or other heavy, ovenproof lidded casserole over medium-high heat. Swirl in 3 tablespoons olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add the chicken pieces (in batches, using additional oil, if necessary), and sauté until golden-brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken to a platter.

DISCARD
any oil remaining in the pan. Add the onions and broth, raise the heat to high and bring to a boil, scraping up all the browned bits with a wooden spoon. Stir in the reserved marinade and reduce the heat to low. Return the chicken pieces to the pan and turn them around in the pan sauce. Fit a piece of foil over the chicken, then cover the pan tightly with the lid.

BRAISE
the chicken in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until tender and cooked through, turning the pieces two or three times in the pan sauce as they braise.

REMOVE
the chicken to a platter and tent with foil to keep warm. Boil the pan sauce over high heat, uncovered, until reduced to about 1
¹
⁄
₂
cups. Stir in the olives and preserved lemon peel, and simmer the sauce on top of the stove, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice, cilantro or parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, and combine well. Return the chicken to the pan and cook briefly until heated through. Taste again and adjust the seasoning or lemon juice as needed.

ARRANGE
the chicken on a serving platter surrounded by the olives. Spoon the sauce generously over all and garnish with the herbs. Pass any remaining sauce separately.

Preserved Lemons

yield:
6 PRESERVED LEMONS

These lemons will take about one week to cure, so plan ahead accordingly. If at all possible, do try to find organic fruit for this recipe, since it is the peel, not the flesh of the lemon that you will be eating. Most commercially grown lemons are coated with edible-grade wax to preserve the gloss and color of the rind; be sure to scrub well to remove it. And if you even suspect that you have hangnails or tiny cuts on your fingers, it's a good idea to wear rubber gloves while working with the salt.

You'll find a slew of uses for preserved lemons, in addition to traditional North African tagines and couscous recipes. Some ideas to get you started: tuck slivers of the peel under the skin of a roasting bird or into stuffings; insert a whole preserved lemon in the cavity of roasting poultry or slip chunks inside a grilling fish; add shredded preserved lemon peel to salads composed of beans (lentils, chickpeas, and others), vegetables (such as potato, roasted eggplant, red pepper, or beet), or grains (like tabouleh); stir finely chopped preserved lemon peel into mayonnaise or sandwich spreads.

And don't discard the tart, salty juice produced during the preserving. It's excellent in vinaigrettes and fish sauces—just remember that it is quite salty, so a little goes a long way.

6 medium lemons, preferably organic

About
¹
⁄
₂
cup coarse kosher salt

1 to 1
¹
⁄
₂
cups fresh lemon juice

REMOVE
any stickers from the lemons and wash the fruit well. If the lemons are coated with wax, scrub it off using a vegetable brush or a new plastic abrasive (soapless) sponge.

BLANCHING
the lemons will begin softening the peel, jump-starting the process. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Add the lemons and stir them around. Cover the pot and boil the fruit for 2 minutes. Drain and pat thoroughly dry.

CHOOSE
a clean, dry wide-mouth glass jar with a plastic lid (metal will corrode), and sprinkle the bottom with 2 tablespoons salt.

PREPARE
the lemons one at a time. Trim off any protruding tips from either end. Cut the lemons into quarters (or sixths if large) lengthwise from top to bottom end, but don't cut all the way through—the lemon quarters should still be attached on one end.

WORKING
over a bowl, spread each lemon open and slather it generously inside and out with salt. Scoop up any salt that falls into the bowl and repack it onto the lemon. Close up the lemons, then pack them tightly into the jar, pushing them down hard with your hands or a wooden spoon to help release their juices.

ADD
enough lemon juice to cover the lemons; if they are not completely submerged, mold may form on the top layer of the fruit.

SPRINKLE
the top with about 2 tablespoons salt and close the lid tightly. Shake the jar well to dissolve the salt. Store in a cool (but unrefrigerated), dry place. Turn the jar upside down and shake vigorously everyday to redistribute the salted juice.

THE
rind of the lemons should be soft and ready to use in about one week. Dribble a thin layer of oil over the lemons and store the jar in the refrigerator. When using, taste, and if very salty, rinse in cold water before adding to recipes.

THE
preserved lemons will keep, refrigerated, for up to 1 year.

Lemon Fried Chicken with Tart Salad Topping

yield:
4 TO 5 SERVINGS

“Why on this night do we dip twice, and on other nights, we dip only once?” asks the youngest child as part of the Four Questions at the seder, seeking an explanation of the mysteries encoded in the ritual Passover meal.

And the head of the family answers that on this night we dip bitter herbs into haroset to remind us of the mortar the Jews used to build Pharaoh's cities and the bitterness they suffered. We dip vegetables in salt water or vinegar to commemorate both the joy of spring and the tears of the Jewish slaves.

But when did we dip once? In ancient times, when the diet of the Jews comprised mainly bread—and heavy bread at that, often made from barley or other coarse grains—they dipped the bread in vinegar, onions, or bitter herbs (the maror of the seder plate) to make the leaden starch more palatable and more digestible.

Arugula was then collected wild by the poor. Purslane—a lemony-flavored, small-leafed green currently gracing mesclun salads—and cress were gathered and later cultivated by Jewish farmers. Jews dipped rough bread into the sharp greens or combined them into a sandwich. (In some Haggadahs, Ashkenazi Jews, unfamiliar with this erstwhile Mediterranean custom of dunking, have changed the question to “. . . and on other nights, we dip not at all?”)

“Lo, this is the bread of affliction,” the Haggadah refers to the matzoh. And after a few days of the coarse, unleavened bread in every guise imaginable, we too, like the ancients, need spring's sharp greens coursing through systems now sluggish and logy.

In this adaptation of a popular Milanese dish, we reenact the dipping one more time: the crisp, matzoh meal-coated chicken is dipped into a salad of tart greens, tomato, and onion.

FOR THE CUTLETS

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¹
⁄
₄
cup olive oil, for frying, plus 1 teaspoon

About 1
¹
⁄
₂
teaspoons salt

About
¹
⁄
₄
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1
³
⁄
₄
to 2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken cutlets, trimmed of fat and gristle and pounded lightly to a uniform thickness

2 large eggs

1 cup matzoh meal, seasoned to taste with salt and pepper

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

FOR THE SALAD

¹
⁄
₂
pound ripe tomatoes, diced (1 cup)

³
⁄
₄
cup finely chopped onion

2 tablespoons fine-quality extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups sharp salad greens (such as arugula, watercress, endive, radicchio, sorrel, flat-leaf parsley, purslane, or—preferably—a mixture of these), washed, dried, and torn into bite-size pieces