I don’t watch a ton of Youtube cooking shows. I have my favorites, but it’s just not something I have the time to do during the day. That said, I do love a few Youtubers and somewhere in the top three of that list is Andrew Rea who makes the amazing Youtube Channel Binging with Babish.
If you aren’t familiar with his videos, he recreates recipes from popular TV shows, but he’s like, really good at it. He’s funny, precise, and his final products always look great!
So, when I saw he had a new cookbook out, I had to get my hands on a copy to try out a few recipes!
The Giveaway
Let’s start with a giveaway! I’m giving away a copy of Binging with Babish on my Instagram channel! Come swing by and enter to win!
It’s a beautiful book and has some really fun recipes in it!
How to Make Andrew’s Palestinian Chicken
I had a hard time picking what to make from this book. To be honest, some of the recipes are more of a looks-nice-but-prob-won’t-try situation. But, there are some like this yogurt marinated chicken that screamed out to me.
The marinade for the chicken is an intensely spiced yogurt mixture, packed with shallot, dill, and spices. Normally, I’m not a huge dill guy, but I liked it in this recipe.
Mix up the marinade well and then add it to a bag with a chicken that has been spatchcocked (backbone removed and flattened). This is best to marinate overnight, but even a few hours will give you good flavor.
When you’re ready to bake the chicken, pull it out of the back and don’t worry about brushing off any extra marinade. It’ll all kind of melt into the chicken as it roasts.
The chicken roasts best on a rack at 450˚ F. for 45-55 minutes. I actually turned my temperature down to 400˚ F. after 30 minutes because I thought my chicken was getting a bit too dark. Keep an eye on it though. You do want it to have a beautiful crispy skin.
My finished bird was a think of beauty! Maybe the crispiest skin I’ve ever had.
Definitely let the yogurt marinated chicken rest for at least 10 minutes and then you can chop it up and serve it.
I kept the wings for myself. I might try a whole batch of wings with this marinade. They were very delicious.
Toum Sauce
The idea of this sauce makes sense to me. It’s basically a garlic emulsion made with lemon, garlic, and oil. For the life of me though, I couldn’t get it to hold together. Mine kept breaking on me.
If you want to try to make it, I’d recommend watching Andrew make it. It’s a really slow drizzle that makes it work and I think I just got impatient.
If you try it and end up where I ended up, have no fear. I saved my broken sauce by stirring some of it into a mix of mayo and greek yogurt. Turned out great! You can stir in as much of the broken toum sauce as you want to up the garlic level to your taste.
This sauce was great with the chicken!
This is a REALLY delicious chicken recipe though and definitely worth a try. And the cookbook is not only filled with fun recipes, but is a beautiful book that is a fun coffee table cookbook!
Palestinian Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, (4-5 pounds)
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 1 handful fresh dill, chopped
- 1 teaspoon sumac
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- Pinch kosher salt and black pepper
Toum Sauce:
- 8 large garlic cloves
- 1 lemon, juice only
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup Greek Yogurt
Instructions
For Toum Sauce:
- For this sauce, I’d recommend <a href=”https://youtu.be/XIZxT7iI-QI?t=332″ target=”_blank”>watching Andrew make it</a>. It’s tricky to do with just garlic, lemon, and oil. My cheater method involves processing the garlic and oil and lemon and then stirring that mixture into mayo and yogurt in whatever ratio you prefer until it tastes delicious!
For the chicken:
- Using some sturdy kitchen shears, remove the backbone from the chicken and press it flat. Transfer the bird to a large resealable bag.
- In a medium bowl stir together yogurt, shallots, lemon zest and juice, dill, sumac, cardamom and olive oil. Season with pinches of salt and pepper and stir to combine. Spoon into bag with chicken and make sure chicken is covered with marinade. Press out any air and seal tightly. Refrigerate for at least four hours or overnight is best.
- To roast, preheat oven to 450 °F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set a rack over the foil. Remove chicken from bag and roast it for 45-55 minutes until it is deeply browned and the internal temperature registers 165˚F in the breast or 180˚ in the thigh. Remove and let rest for 10 minutes. Then slice and serve with sauce.
Eric
The recipe says 1 hr 30 minutes, yet it requires marinating for a minimum of 4 hours. Math people.