Ick

It was bound to happen eventually. Chicken with Potatoes and Olives sounds mundane. I like all the ingredients. It calls for pre-cooked chicken (I went the rotisserie route). I thought it was going to be a fast, unexciting, chicken-saladish dish to pull together. (Everything is bound together with yogurt)

It WAS fast. It was also nasty.

You don't LOOK revolting.

The problem, for me, was the spice blend. You toast fennel, coriander, and mustard seeds, grind them in a coffee grinder, then add to the mix.

1 tablespoon of mustard seeds is a lot of mustard. Like, A LOT. A ton. A mountain of mustard. My optimistic self thought that all the flavors would balance out. Nope. This was sinus-clearing, horseradish-level mustard flavor, with a floral backnote (the coriander?). I couldn't eat it. I picked at it, dumped it, ate and apple and almond butter, and called it a night. Needless to say, I woke up starving.

Oh, yeah--there's the ugly. All of this got tossed. It hurt my "waste not" heart.

Conclusion: Hated it.

Turmeric Chicken with Sumac and Lime

When I first flipped through The New Persian Kitchen, I immediately flagged Turmeric Chicken with Sumac and Lime, primarily because I didn't need to buy anything except a lime, but it was different enough that I wasn't totally sure how it would turn out.

First, you coat the chicken with a hefty mixture of turmeric, salt, and pepper, and brown them on each side. You don't just brown them, though. You reeeeeally brown them. It says 7 minutes per side. I was afraid it would burn in that time, but it was fine. Then you add water and a lot of garlic, cover it, and let it braise for a while.

I was pleasantly surprised, when I lifted the cover, that the garlic water had mixed with the spices on the chicken and thickened into a sauce, and the chicken itself was completely, beautifully tender. The recipe calls for thighs, but I used breasts, because, despite the fact that every cooking show on earth tells me that dark meat is superior, I think it mostly tastes the same, but there is less of it, and you have to deal with all those gristly, nasty tendons and things. Please don't completely write me off. I'm sorry, Mr. Bourdain. And Colicchio. And all the rest of you. Ha!

Sprinkle with sumac, spritz with some lime juice, dress with the sauce, and dive in. The chicken and the sauce were very salty, so I'm glad I tasted it before slathering it on. With restraint, it was salty in the best possible way.

I always avoid eye contact and hold my breath whenever Batman tries something new. He's getting better about eating a variety of food, but it's been historically difficult. He accused me of putting vegetables in it to turn it yellow. I assured him there were no vegetables in the chicken. He tasted it, and declared it "really good! Salty! Like french fries!" I'd say there was a bit more of a spicy nuance there, but whatever--he ate it! No complaints!

He asked if it was Indian food.
I said, "No, Persian."
He said, "Does that mean it's from Paris?"
"I said, "No, it's from Iran."
He chewed, and nodded, and said, "Cool. I miss Paris. That place was really big, and we ate a lot of dessert there."

We sure did. Paris, in a nutshell.

Conclusion: Loved it. I wish that I'd made double, so I could have leftovers on a salad for lunch tomorrow. This will definitely be a repeat.