Cooking from Persiana

The new Persiana book by Sabrina Ghayour has been staring at me from the kitchen shelf for a few weeks now. I somehow managed to buy it from a store before its official publishing date. I really wanted to cook everything and anything from it, but various things kept distracting me, mainly things like having to empty out the freezer eating up all the mixtures of leftovers for the last month.

Then we had guests to stay and the perfect opportunity arose for me to try out at least one dish. Then the decision, which dish from the myriad of delicious, mouthwatering options. Eventually I chose Saffron and Lemon Chicken- Joojeh Kabab. It was a joy of golden, unctuous deliciousness, with the benefit of being pretty easy too!

Here:

Serves 4:

4 Onions sliced into half moons
5 Lemons- juiced I felt it was a waste not to zest them first so I have kept the zest for another time.
4 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Ground turmeric- I would advise not to wear anything white when making or eating this dish!
400g Greek yoghurt-  I ended up using Greek Style, which made the dish a bit more wet. I wil try again with proper Greek yoghurt
3 tbsp Sea salt- crushed
Generous pinch of saffron
3 tbsp Boiling water
6 Large chicken breasts- chopped into chunks

Mix together the onions, lemon juice, olive oil, turmeric,yoghurt and salt in a large bowl.

Grind the saffron to a powder and pour over the boiling water - be careful I managed to splash this everywhere- and leave to infuse for 5-10 minutes

Add the chicken into the yoghurt mixture and mix well, the add the saffron water, mix again thoroughly, cover and leave to marinade for as long as possible in the fridge.

When ready to cook preheat your oven/grill to the highest setting.

Get a large baking sheet and line with baking parchment, lay the chicken out in one layer and bake/grill for 18-20 mins, until cooked through and slightly charred on the edges.

Serve with flour tortilla wraps or rice - we are going through a brown rice phase and it was delicious, salad and yogurt if you desire.

No pictures as it was wolfed down so quickly, plus I don't think my photos could ever match up to the beautiful styling of Sabrina's book.

Enjoy!