God DAMIT I love a fruit salsa. Something about sweet and heat together that makes me get all smiley like a real person. So imagine the size of my smile when I came acrost this little recipe in the July Cooking Light Magazine that pairs a banging Nectarine Salsa with some Chicken Kabobs and Herbed Couscous. Could there be a more summery and flavorful dish. I’m also freaking out about this delish dinner idear because my super awesome sister who used to live in Morocco, just got back from a visit there and she brought me a literal arms’ load of spices from the medina.
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| The spice is good, just watch out for the giant sandworms. |
I like remembering my own visit to Morocco five summers ago. I experienced a phenomenon there that will remain one of my very favorite memories called the Hamam. Imagine a public bath with concrete floors, small mosaic flourishes here and there, but nothing too grandiose; this is a place of utility and function, not accoutrements. Pay the soft-spoken attendant a small fee and enter into the first room where you remove all of your clothes. Here, women do not suck in their tummies for the benefit of the other women. They do not wear the fashionable cut of expensive underwear. They wear their stretch marks as badges of honor and courage, the regal reminder of the trials of marriage and childbirth and age. Into the next room the steam becomes a piece of furniture. Newcomers try absently to part it with their hands like a heavy curtain. Oldtimers hardly notice it. Women gather in their groups of familiars. Neighbors, sisters and friends sit together like high school lunch and speak in low but relaxed tones about their men and children and god. They take turns grooming each other, scrubbing. You can pay an attendant to scrub you if you come without your girls. She will take a soap made of olive oil and spread a thin layer over your whole body, her pendulous breasts sweeping arcs over your back as she exfoliates you down to your baby skin. No matter what your class, your marital status, your size or age or color, everyone’s, every woman’s shed dead skin, all go down the central drain together. It is a magic, humbling place, to be in the company of such women, caring for each other with a ritual older than the city walls that protect it. I will always be grateful to my sister for showing me that there are places where women can still be women.
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| I wish I had a cat picture to break up this wall of text. |
Anyhoo, my love of a fruit based salsa + my booty of smuggled Moroccan spices + my nostalgia for authentic experiences + my new subscription to Cooking Light Magazine have all conspired to command me to taste-test this recipe on my dear sister’s birthday and the first full real day of summer. Thanks so much for thinking of me Meredith, and I hope your birthday in Jamaica was awesome.
Shizz Besides the Basics:
1. Broiler pan. This is that thing that came with the oven. It is probably in the pull out drawer underneath your oven, and you most likely have never used it because who knows how to operate the broiler on their oven? I guess I do, now.
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| These Kebab sticks still softer than ya mama's spaghetti. |
3. Silicone Pastry Brush. This little tool has about 439 uses in the kitchen, so just go ahead and get one already. It makes getting the spice rub on the chicken a lot easier than trying to do it with the power of your mind alone.
Ingredients: (for 4 servings, or for 2 servings and lunch the rest of the week, bang bang.)
Chicken Kabobs:
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
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| Is it wrong to store these in snuff boxes? |
2 teaspoons chili powder (I used the spicy chili powder from Morocco and it was fucking fabulous but I am sure your regular old pedestrian chili powder will be fine too)
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin (Once again, I used vastly superior Moroccan cumin, but the regular plebe cumin will suffice)
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| How can you tell if they're still cherry tomatoes? |
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 24 (2-inch) pieces – about 2 breasstices
1 large red onion, cut into 32 (2-inch) pieces
16 cherry tomatoes, washed
Cooking spray
Nectarine Salsa:
2 cups diced nectarine (about 3)
½ cup diced red bell pepper
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| Once you get the nut out of them, it's like a knife through butter. |
¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
1 ½ tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons minced seeded jalapeno or Serrano pepper (I used Serrano, natch)
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup diced peeled avocado
Herbed Couscous:
¾ cup chicken broth
½ cup water
1 cup uncooked couscous
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| 4329 blank canvases |
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (I used scallions because I like them better)
¼ teaspoon salt
Bonus ingredient: 1 tablespoon of special CousCous Spices from Morocco – smells like turmeric and curry and celery salt, but who knows. Your couscous will still be yum city without this special treat.
Order of Operations:
Game Plan is this: Prepare the spice rub for the chicken, then while the chicken marinates, make the salsa and while the chicken broils, make the couscous. Whole process takes about 45 minutes.
1. Preheat your broiler. If you have the option of choosing a “high” or “low” setting, choose high. Always choose high.
2. Combine the 1 TBSP brown sugar, 1 TBSP olive earl, 1 TBSP lime juice, 2 TSP chili powder, 1 TSP garlic, ½ TSP salt, ½ TSP cumin and ¼ TSP black pepper in a bowl. Swirl it around with your silicone pastry brush until it is blended.
3. Get your chicken boobs, which you diligently set out half an hour prior so that it is nice and room temp and easy to work with, and slice them up into 2 inch chunks. Use your noodle on this one. You want your chicken pieces to be consistently sized, so that they are consistently cooked. Don’t make your chunks much bigger than what you can get in your mouth. Some of you are circus performers or had very interesting party college careers, so those of you should disregard that last statement. Make sure to follow proper safety guidelines when handling and cooking raw chicken. If you don’t know what those are by now then I am not sure what I can do for you, cept run you over in my car and put an end to your miserable and misinformed and thoroughly plagued with salmonella life.
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| A picture of a saucy chick's breast on the internet. |
4. Remember that 9x13 casserole dish in which your wooded skewers were bathing? Well dump the water out and remove the skewers and lay your chicken chunks out in a single layer in said casserole dish. Then get your spice rub and your pastry brush and start painting that chicken up like the Jezebel you know it was while still alive and clucking.
5. Once one side of your chicken is all spicy and pretty, use some tongs to flip the bird(s) and brush on the spice rub on the other side. Make sure all 360 degrees of chicken surface have some spice rub all up in them. Now let your birds sit there and think about what they’ve done for at least 15 minutes but not longer than 30. The citric acid in the lime juice can actually break down the muscle tissue if you leave it on too long. We just want the chickens tenderized and flavory – not partially digested.
6. Leave your chickens be and get to work on your salsa. Start with the red onion, which will do double duty (doody) in this dish. Grab your onion and turn him on his side, slicing off the root and the top and throw those + skins into your stock Ziploc.
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| More crying than The Crying Game, yet less gamey. |
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| Always have some fine slices lined up. |
8. Take one of those quarters you made up there, and slice it very, very thinly with ya knife. You want skinny little shoestrings of red onion. These are going raw into the salsa, so don’t make slices bigger than what you would want to eat. Slice up maybe two of those quarters and you should have more than enough for your salsa. Set them aside in a little bowl, and add as many as you deem appropriate at the end of the salsa preparation. Your eyeball is your greatest measuring device.
9. Slice and dice your washed nectarines (or peaches if you prefer) and toss them into a bowl. Make sure you don’t leave any pit or pit pieces or spiny flesh attached.
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| I prefer all of my veg to look like smiling clown uteruseses. |
10. Slice up the red pepper, removing any seeds and membranes, and once you have a half a cup or so, toss them into your bowl.
11. 1 ½ TBSP lime juice and ¼ TSP salt, into the bowl.
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| My superpower is invisible scissors. |
13. 2 TBSP of your very fresh cilantro, which is just about big enough in your garden to be harvested, should be washed and thrown into the mix.
14. Ok, once your salsa sans avocado is all stirred up and ready to go, pop it in the fridge and let it sit still for a hot minute.
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| Here's your tossed salad. |
15. ½ cup of diced avocado is the last ingredient for the salsa, but wait to slice it and stir it in until JUST PRIOR to serving, so that shit don’t get all brown and mushy. The lime juice can keep the avocado from getting super oxidized like immediately, but it won’t help with the mush.
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| Tags: Food, Cooking, Industrial Wastescapes |
16. Now it is time for KABOB ASSEMBLY.
17. Take your cooking spray and generously coat the surface of your broiling pan. If you pull open the door of your dish washer and set the pan on the open door, it makes cleaning up errant cooking spray a snap.
18. Set up a little assembly line with your red onion, chicken, and cherry tomatoes.
19. Here is the formula that I used, but feel free to design your own:
2 slices of red onion + chicken + tomato + onion + chicken + onion + tomato + chicken + onion
20. That breaks down into 4 onions with two slices of onion in each portion, 3 chicken chunks, and 2 tomatoes per kabob skewer. Leave about 2 or 3 inches of wood on each end of your skewers, and place onto your broiling pan once assembled.
21. Get busy skewering, y’all. It’s cool, I’ll wait.
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| Add a shrunken head at the end of the kebab to inspire fear. |
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| Dune Joke 2: Cashing in on Dune Again by Frank Herbert |
24. While your couscous is doing its thing, you can do your thing with the herbs. Wash and chop your parsley. Wash and slice up your spring onion or chives as you like. Get your salt ready.
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| Mood: Aerate. Listening to: Kansas - Dust in the Wind |
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| When cous isn't enough and couscouscous is too much. |
26. Once your couscous looks like couscous and not grits, then add in and gently stir to mix, thine herbs and seasoning: 2 TBSP parsley or basil and 2 TBSP chives or scallions and 1/4 TSP salt.
27. Slice up your ½ cup of avocado and gently stir into your salsa. Add as many or as few red onion strips to said salsa if you haven’t already.
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| Internet Exclusive: Picture of Ascending Chicken Souls |
28. Once your kebabs come out of the oven and you have silenced your bloody fucking smoke alarm, let them rest for 3 to 5 minutes while you plate up the couscous and salsa and set the table and cue up the American Dad on Netflix because that’s the way we feel like rolling tonight and who is gonna stop us.
29. Finish your plating and get ready to enjoy a savory treat, yet sweet with a little heat and some cooling couscous to stick to your ribs. A delicious, delicious dinner.
