Chicken with Harissa

Smitten Kitchen's Carrot Salad with Harissa and Mint is absolutely out of this world.  Its got everything: sweet crunchy carrots, spicy Harissa dressing, cool fresh mint and salty feta.  Its honestly one of the best vegetables I have ever eaten.  It was one of those recipes I knew I had to make from the instant I saw it online when I was at school.  I wrote it down in my little blue notebook of recipes and waited until I could get into a kitchen.  When I made it for the first time at home, I had a food processor to shred the carrots and the recipe was a breeze  It was gone halfway through dinner.  The next time I made it I doubled the recipe, and we still licked the bowl clean.  I haven't made it since moving to Boston for lack of a machine to grate about a pound of carrots (a weak excuse, I know).

But yesterday we had a bag of carrots sitting in the fridge and the temptation was finally more than I could bear.  I ran out to Whole Foods and grabbed a can of Harissa (a Morrocan spice paste).  I didn't have a food processor, but I had Liz and a box grater.  I promised her her efforts would be worth it.

Charmoula

I will put charmoula sauce on almost anything.  Roast chicken? Of course.  The tomato salad served with the roast chicken? Surprisingly good. With hummus on carrots?  On fried eggs the next day? Delicious. I would have kept putting it on everything I ate if I hadn't scooped up the last of it with a flour tortilla.

Charmoula is a North African spice paste, traditionally eaten in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.  Although it sounds exotic, it is insanely easy and cheap to make.  I first saw charmoula on Mark Bittman's column in the NYTimes, and further research revealed recipes calling for charmoula on everything from lamb to shrimp to vegetables.  Bittman even suggests potatoes.  Its rather thick sauce, and packs a spicy punch.  A little goes a long way.

Chicken Parmesan

I know it's spring.  I know I should be fawning over fresh peas and arugula and cooking things with bright citrusy flavors.  But with the last vestiges of winter weather still in the air, I decided to make the ultimate comfort food: chicken parm.  Its also a very homey dish to me (I picture Italian grandmothers making this for their entire extended families on Sunday afternoons), and this being my first dinner in the apartment, I found it appropriate.

Chicken Parmesan is usually made with chicken breasts pounded thin.  There were chicken tenderloins in the freezer, so I used those instead.  I didn't pound them because they were already pretty thin.  I decided to saute the chicken, instead of frying it,  for two reasons. 1) Health:  Even if you do smother it in cheese, sauteed chicken at least sounds better for you.  2) Economy: I didn't want to use an entire bottle of oil.

How To Roast a Chicken on the Grill

This post was originally going to be recipe for a strawberry tart (to be posted soon). We were having a roast chicken for dinner (2, to be exact), and I just didn't want to write about another roast chicken. Sure, they were stuffed with fresh herbs and garlic and covered with kosher salt and herbes de Provence. Yes, they were sitting on a bed of onion wedges that would caramelize and absorb all the delicious chicken fat. But really, haven't we all read 25 other recipes like this?

A fresh strawberry tart seemed far more interesting and provocative, that is, until the power went out 15 minutes after the chickens went into the oven. Instead of waiting for the power to return, my dad and I fired up the gas grill. Grilled chicken pieces are a standard around here, but we had yet to roast one whole. The key to grilling chicken pieces is to keep the heat very very low so that the meat can cook through without drying out or the skin burning. That, and keeping the lid closed to keep the heat in. We decided to try this technique to finish "roasting" the birds.