Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

Saturday April 12

We were having our friends and former students Burcu and Murat over to dinner, with their little girl Yaz. After the *snow* that happened last time they were supposed to come, we wanted to have a springtime picnic. But the weather once again turned against us, and it was overcast, cold, and rainy. Accordingly, we decided on a kid-friendly Mediterranean-style indoor picnic.

The opening meze offered plenty of options: Holt made tarama, and in honor of the guests' home country Turkey we had kuru bakla ezmesi, i.e. fava hummus, both more or less as we did here. Burcu said she usually finds the fava stuff too bland, but likes Barbara's version, whipped up with coriander, cumin, and more olive oil.
We also got the pitas, a "festive blend" of olives, and some assorted nuts from Dean's Mediterranean Store down at Findley Market.
We accompanied all this with white wine or water, according to age and taste.

Holt also made one of his great appetizers, tiny new potatoes with sour cream. We haven't done this on the blog before, it seems, but it's easy and unbelievably elegant AS WELL AS kid-friendly.
Take the smallest new potatoes you can find.
Cut them in half.
Boil them in water with
2 crushed cloves of garlic,
kosher salt,
some pepper corns,
and 1 tsp of turmeric (which not only makes them yellow but adds a real earthy note).
When cool, top with sour cream (use a star-tip in a plastic or pastry bad for that great li-di-da poofter touch) chives (like a great li-di-da . . .), caviar, smoked salmon flakes, what-have-you.

Earlier, we had marinated six chicken breasts in olive oil with fresh snipped rosemary and thyme. Chicken breasts tend to be burnt outside and raw inside if you grill them, so instead we followed new Joy's directions and broiled them in the oven, first skin side down for 15 minutes, then skin side up for 10. They came out perfectly, and Yaz loved them.

There had been a nice assortment of asparagus, zucchini, red onions, and red and yellow bell peppers available at Findlay Market, so we sliced them up according to size and shape, and gathered around the ol' indoor grill. Actually, the asparagus was pre-roasted before the chicken went in, as asparagus always tends to roll off a grill, and burns to boot.

Burcu had made a beautiful milk-and-semolina pudding, dusted with coconut and decorated with fresh peach slices, for dessert. We enjoyed it with coffee, and later had a glass of the Yeni Raki they had brought as well, for our nightcap. Sweet Anatolian dreams ensued. We're so glad we finally had dinner together!