Greek-Style Lemony Chicken and Potatoes

Tonight's dinner: tender chicken leg quarters marinated in a Greek-inspired mix of yogurt, lemon juice, garlic and herbs. This was roasted on top of potatoes and onions drizzled in olive oil. As you can see from the photo, it's way too much food for just the two of us, but I made enough for leftovers. I'm planning on topping a green salad with some of this roasted chicken for a nice lunch tomorrow; that is, unless my boyfriend beats me to it and eats it for breakfast!

We just got back from 2 weeks in the States, and I feel so heavy. We ate so much greasy food, especially during the last half of the trip, when we were at a conference. Being at my parent's home (the first week) we could eat reasonably, but during that conference it was difficult. So basically we consumed a large number of french fries and heavy sandwiches.

After that, we've both been craving lighter and more wholesome food. I've been eating almost nothing but green salad for the past few days, just because it's so good after all that grease! But today it was time for something substantial again, yet still nutritious and not too heavy. We had just bought some chicken leg quarters yesterday, so I decided to make this. Greek or Greek-inspired dishes are always so tasty, in my opinion!

Ingredients:
3 chicken leg quarters (or more if you like)
1 T olive oil

Marinade:
1 big clove of garlic for each quarter + 1 extra
1/4 c yogurt (plain)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
About 1-2 T dried oregano (to taste, can use fresh of course)
1 sprig mint, chopped
Generous sprinkling coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
1 t olive oil

4 medium potatoes
1 large white onion
1 T olive oil
Salt

Method:
Can be done ahead of time: Crush and chop the garlic, and mix all ingredients for marinade in a shallow bowl. Make sure the chicken is clean and dry; salt it a bit. Place the chicken in the dish, coating well with marinade. Separate the skin from the meat to spoon some marinade inside each piece. Let the chicken sit in the remaining marinade, turning occasionally. I marinated for an hour, but you could even do it overnight. Just make sure you refrigerate the chicken.


Chicken in marinade; potatoes and onions in the pan, ready to cook.

When you're ready to cook: Wash (peel if desired) and cube the potatoes. Cut the onion into sort of thick chips or semi-rings. Place potatoes and onions in a roasting pan. Mix well with some salt and 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Remove the chicken from the marinade, laying the pieces on top of the potatoes, skin side down. You can spoon any remaining marinade over the chicken. Place in a 190 degree C (375 degree F) oven for about 30 minutes. After about 30 minutes, take the pan out of the oven and turn the chicken pieces over. The skin side should be facing up now. Drizzle the remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil over the skin of the chicken. Bake for about 40 minutes more, or until chicken is done and skin is crisp and golden brown.

Notes and Serving Suggestion: It was a really nice, mild tasting meal. Filling but not greasy, the sort of thing you feel good after eating. I really like lemon flavor on the potatoes, so next time I may squeeze a little extra lemon juice over them. We ate this with a simple Greek salad. The sauce from the chicken was very tasty soaked up with bread.

Insane Lemon Saffron Cake

I found this recipe here, while looking for a recipe for a cake using fromage blanc. (That will come later, I hope.) The horoshaya kukhniya (good cook) site is one of my favorites, and the recipe sounded cool, so I thought I'd give it a try. The site is in Russian.

Oh, and I'm calling it "insane" because 1) the lemon flavor is really strong, 2) it is very sweet. You'll need a cup of tea with this. It's not bad, but for my personal taste it was too sweet. My BF must have liked it though, because he ate a bunch of it. So nice to have someone other than myself to test these things on!

Insane Lemon Cake
Adapted from the "Simple Lemon Cake" at horoshaya kukhniya

Ingredients:
For cake:
3 eggs (the ones I have are small)
1/2 glass of sugar
2/3 glass of flour
1.5 tea spoons baking powder
lemon zest to taste
a generous pinch of saffron

For syrup:
3/4 cup of sugar
juice of 4 lemons
1 t honey

*A note about measurements: in Russian recipes it's quite common to see units of a "glass", a "tea spoon" and a "soup spoon" or "big spoon". The glass corresponds roughly to 1 cup. The tea spoon and soup/big spoon correspond roughly to a standard teaspoon and tablespoon, respectively. Perhaps the Russian spoon measurements are slightly bigger, in my opinion. I'm not sure if it's true, but I think that this comes from a time when there was considerably less variety amongst people's belongings--like silverware and glassware. Under those circumstances, saying "a glass of sugar" works just fine.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (roughly 350 Fahrenheit). In a bowl, beat the eggs with the 1/2 glass (cup) of sugar. When well combined, stir in (carefully) the zest, saffron, flour and baking powder. When everything is incorporated, pour the batter (which will be thick) into a cake pan. It's better to use a deep pan if you have one. When the cake is firm and golden brown on the top, take it out. This will probably be about 40 minutes. Let the cake cool, and meanwhile prepare the syrup. I cheated and stuck my cake in the freezer while I made the syrup, so I didn't have to wait for it to cool very long. For the syrup, combine the lemon juice, sugar and honey. Heat on low until sugar is dissolved and a syrup is formed. This syrup should be poured over the cake. I cut off a bit of the top of the cake (so it was flat) to expose a more porous surface before pouring the syrup on top. This was because I didn't have a deep pan, and if I had done otherwise the syrup would've gone everywhere. Once the syrup has soaked into the cake, serve.

Notes: The original recipe called for tumeric, but I thought that sounded strange, so I added saffron instead. This made it smell great. This cake is really sweet and rich with the syrup. Without it is a bit hard, dry and not very sweet. So, it needs to soak in something, but I think this syrup is too much. What sounds good to me, coming from an Indian background, is some sort of lightly sweetened milk. The original recipe's syrup calls just for lemon and sugar. I added a bit of honey because I thought it was too sour, but then I tasted it and realized that it was already on the verge of too sweet, so to mellow things out I added some water instead of more honey. Adding water is what the original recipe suggests.

Next time I make this I'm going to try to soak it in something else, and maybe leave the lemon flavor out entirely. My idea is to basically make the saffron cake, but add some pistachios. Then, instead of syrup, I will mix some cold milk with Rooh Afza and pour that over the cake instead. Hmm, why didn't I think of that an hour ago?

Serving Suggestion: You must have tea with this. Otherwise it's impossible.