Greek Chicken With Cucumber-Feta Salad

Greek Chicken With Cucumber-Feta Salad

This meal has the flavors of a Greek combination plate with chicken souvlaki, Greek salad and tzatziki, but it is streamlined for the home cook. Boneless chicken thighs are coated with herby, garlicky yogurt, then seared until tender inside and crusty and browned outside. Extra yogurt dresses cucumbers and tomatoes that have had a chance to drain with salt so they taste their most vivid. Feta and olives add briny bites to the creamy, crunchy salad, but feel free to incorporate other elements of Greek salad or tzatziki, like romaine lettuce, bell peppers, mint or dill, toasted walnuts or thinly sliced red onion. Eat with lemon potatoes or toasted pita.

Yield: 4 servings

1 ½ cups plain Greek yogurt

3 garlic cloves, finely grated

Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)

Black pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano or mint

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, patted dry

1 ½ pounds cucumbers (preferably Japanese, Persian or mini, seedless cucumbers)

1 pound ripe tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed

4 ounces feta, crumbled (about ¾ cup)

½ cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt and garlic; season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer ½ cup of the yogurt to a medium bowl and reserve for Step 5.

Coat the chicken: To the large bowl, add the oregano and stir to combine. Season the chicken all over with 1 ½ teaspoons salt and a few grinds of pepper. Add the chicken to the large bowl and turn to coat; set aside.

Start the salad: Smash the cucumbers with the side of your knife until craggy and split. Rip into ½- to 1-inch pieces and transfer to a colander placed in the sink. Slice or chop the tomatoes into bite-size pieces. Add to the cucumbers along with 1 ½ teaspoons salt. (It may seem like a lot of salt, but most will drain away.) Toss to combine and leave to drain.

In a large nonstick or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, heat the olive oil over medium. Scrape excess marinade off the chicken, then cook the chicken in batches, adding oil to the pan if necessary, until it’s well browned and releases from the pan, 5 to 7 minutes. Flip and cook until cooked through, another 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to plates to rest. (For grilling info, see Tip.)

To the medium bowl of yogurt, add the feta and mash with a fork until a chunky paste forms. Shake the cucumbers and tomatoes to get rid of any excess moisture. Add to the feta yogurt along with the olives and stir until coated. The balance is dependent on your produce and feta, so season to taste with salt and pepper until flavors are vivid. Eat alongside the chicken.

Tip: To grill the chicken: Heat a grill to medium and clean and grease the grates. Grill the chicken over direct heat until it's well browned and releases from the grates, 5 to 7 minutes. Flip and cook until cooked through, another 5 to 7 minutes. (For a gas grill, close the lid between flips.)

baked the chicken on a sheet pan at 400

I do a similar meal often. I like to add turmeric to my marinade for both the color and the health benefits and always add an acid too such as lemon, lime and sometimes orange zest. Sometimes I add a little cumin for a warm flavor or even chilli powder for some smokeyness. This is a great base recipe to make your own.

Made this as written and it is fabulous (400 degree oven instead of stovetop). Took a leftover piece of chicken and cut it up and added to the leftover cucumber-feta salad for lunch leftovers! This recipe could easily be a cold Greek chicken salad.

My favorite method for cooking yogurt-marinated chicken is the broiler: on top of a wire rack in a foil-lined sheet pan, 8 minutes per side. Great char and juicy. That worked well here, as did the juice of half a lemon in the salad. I served it all wrapped up in a flour tortilla and look forward to the leftovers. Dill would be nice here, too.

Jollof Rice

Jollof Rice

A successful batch of jollof rice requires a few key ingredients (tomatoes, peppers, onions, a few herbs, spices and some stock) and a perfect sauce-to-rice ratio, so the cooked grains remain separate. I have found that the best, no-fuss way to do this is in the oven. Jollof is typically made with long-grain rice, though in Nigeria, parboiled rice is the norm. Most jollof is prepared over an open flame or on a stovetop. Missing from this oven version is the slightly smoky flavor you get from the little bits of rice that have browned on the bottom of your pan, but that’s nothing a pinch of smoked paprika can’t fix. Serve with braised goat or other stewed meats, and a side of fried plantains.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

FOR THE OBE ATA

1 (14-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes with their juices

1 medium red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and roughly chopped

½ medium red onion, peeled and roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled

1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 red habanero chile, stemmed

2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil

FOR THE JOLLOF RICE

½ cup canola or other neutral oil

2 medium red onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)

3 cups parboiled long-grain rice (such as Carolina Gold or Uncle Ben’s Original), basmati or jasmine rice (about 1¼ pounds)

5 fresh thyme sprigs

1 fresh bay leaf

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups beef, chicken or vegetable stock

Prepare the obe ata: Working in batches if needed, combine all the obe ata ingredients except the canola oil in a blender and purée on high until smooth. The liquid from the can of tomatoes should suffice, but you can add up to ¼ cup of water if necessary to get the purée going. (You should have about 3 cups of purée.)

Heat the 2 tablespoons canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high. Add the purée and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer until the sauce is slightly reduced by about a third of its original volume, 18 to 20 minutes. (It should make about 2 cups. Obe ata can be cooled and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks, or frozen for up to 1 month.)

Prepare the rice: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the ½ cup canola oil in a large Dutch oven over medium until shimmering, about 1 minute. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove half the onions to a plate and set aside. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, turmeric and smoked paprika, if using, and toast, stirring occasionally, until turmeric is fragrant and tomato paste has deepened to a dark red color, about 2 minutes.

Stir in the obe ata sauce and bring to a simmer over medium heat. The habanero oils love to disperse in the air, so you may want to turn on your stovetop fan or open a window while simmering the obe ata. Stir in the rice, thyme and bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the stock and cover with a lid. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook until rice is just tender, 35 minutes.

Remove the pot from the oven and let sit, covered (no peeking) for 15 minutes. Uncover, fluff the rice with a fork and stir in the reserved sautéed onions. Adjust seasoning, if necessary, and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Serve warm.

TIP: For those interested in cooking the recipe but who (like me) don't use "converted" (parboiled) rice, I suggest you could substitute 2 cups long-grain rice and 2-1/2 cups of stock.

1) solid recipe with superior flavor and great balance. My wife is in love with this.

2) to me, a Nigerian, this doesn’t exactly taste like jollof. In facts it’s probably the least “jollof” tasting jollof I’ve ever had but it’s still delicious

3) recommend cooking on stove as opposed to oven. You will achieve the slight burn to the bottom which provides excellent flavor. I cooked it between 4-5 on electrical stove for 30 min, then left covered 10

I made it with three cups of basmati rice - didn’t change the recipe and came out great!