Voice of the Coast

If you can read, you can cook.

Rosemary Malvey

I come from a line of women who prepared meals. For years my lame joke was, “I don’t cook, I’m Irish.”

Living in a city on the East Coast, where fresh fruits and vegetables were available for only a few months, my mother fed a large family in a similar way each evening – meat, a starch and a canned vegetable. In the summer months a “salad” would be added - iceberg lettuce, a “Jersey” tomato and some cucumber. It didn’t inspire my mother when my father would frequently proclaim at the dinner table, “I don’t live to eat. I only eat to live.”

With my own family (three kids and a spouse), I mimicked my mother for years. Driven by finicky appetites along with work, school and activity schedules, I chose food for speed and acceptability so that the family would sit at the table together at least once each hectic day. Everyone was appreciative enough. The kids left the table full and developed healthily, but there was nothing exciting about the meals I served. It was just food.

With kids grown and gone and the luxury of more time, I have an appreciative eater in my (second) husband and the delights of Northern California produce. Voila, I’m becoming a cook. I find myself searching for unusual recipes with uncommon ingredients. I’ve dared to attempt dishes from different cultures and I’ve perfected a few “signature” items which have wowed family and friends. When I get raves I’m quick to let my audience know that I cook from cookbooks. My theory is, if you can read and you don’t mind making and cleaning up a mess, you too can cook.

I’ve fallen in love with fruits and vegetables--they suddenly seem sacred. It’s a pleasure slicing into a luscious vegetable, then holding it up to the light to carefully examine the color, texture and arrangement of the inside. Each one is beautifully and uniquely different. Why had I never noticed this exquisiteness before? Too young and busy I suppose. What I “discover” pleases me to no end. Last Sunday, while cooking a pair of eggplant dishes, the first eggplant I sliced into revealed two perfect side-by-side seed “hearts.” I blinked, gawked and laughed out loud, then searched in vain for more hearts with each succeeding slice of the purple beauties.

I offer you a recipe from my favorite cookbook – The Flavor-Principle Cookbook. Published in 1973 but now out of print (and seemingly a collector’s item), the author Elizabeth Rozin, created an interesting, easy-to-use book that presents dishes from around the world. She categorized them based on combinations of ingredients (principles) that make them uniquely representative of their geographical region. Not only was my first attempt a success, the book has enabled me (me!) to cook Greek, Mexican, Middle Eastern and Indian dishes with no big fuss. I hope you and the people at your table enjoy this wonderful dish. It appears verbatim from the cookbook, followed by my notes from having cooked it a number of times.

Middle Eastern Stuffed Chicken

(Honey – Nut + Tomato + Cinnamon-Lemon)

This is a particularly successful combination, the skin of the chicken richly glazed with honey and sesame seeds, the stuffing fragrant with cinnamon and fruit. The apricots are a characteristic Persian touch.

1/4 cup butter
1 small white onion, minced
1/2 cup bulgar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup raisins
3/4 teaspoon salt
Dash of freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 4 to 4 1/2 -pound roasting chicken
1/4 cup honey
3 – 4 tablespoons sesame seeds

1. In a medium saucepan heat 2 tablespoons butter over moderate heat. Add the onion and sauté, stirring, about 5 minutes. Add bulgar and sauté, stirring, 5 minutes.

2. Add cinnamon, stock, tomato sauce, apricots, raisins, 1/4 teaspoon salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low, cover, and cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, 1 hour.

3. Wash chicken, then dry inside and out with paper towels.

4. In a small saucepan heat honey, 2 more tablespoons butter, and 1/2 teaspoon salt over low heat until butter melts.

5. Stuff chicken with the bulgar-fruit mixture. Place in roasting pan, then brush chicken thoroughly with the honey-butter mixture. Roast in a preheated 350 degree oven 1 hour and 15 minutes. Brush frequently with reserved honey-butter mixture while roasting.

6. After 1 hour, baste chicken for the last time with the honey-butter mixture and drippings from pan. Carefully sprinkle sesame seeds all over the surface of the chicken. Return to oven for 15 more minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Serves 6.

Notes from the cook:

• You can buy bulgar (cracked whole grain that is cooked and dried) at Cunha’s, or in bulk at Whole Foods or Berkeley Bowl.

• I use Safeway’s no-salt-added canned chicken broth.

• After making the recipe “by the book” the first time, I never again stuffed a whole chicken. It was too difficult and messy to cut it apart for serving. I use chicken pieces and serve the bulgar-fruit mixture as a side dish directly from the saucepan it was cooked in on the range – the same great tastes with less mess and frustration.

• I use Trader Joe’s Blenheim Variety Unsulfured Apricots, but first pour boiling water over them and let them soften for five minutes or more before draining, blotting dry and then dicing. Much easier than attacking them dry..

• I use golden raisins.

• As cooked by me, this recipe has never served six. My eaters are real eaters. It more likely serves four as written.

To all of you seasoned and accomplished cooks who may think my observations are of the “duh, of course” variety, thanks for allowing an old (but enthusiastic) novice to share some tricks I learned through trial and error – just in case there are others like me who are coming to the joy of cooking at a later time in life. Happy cooking and enjoy the eating as well!