Chicken Rfissa

Chicken Rfissa is a traditional Moroccan dish of chicken and lentils served over a bed of shredded msemen bread that I decided to make for a Spanish wine pairing potluck. The dish was a big hit! It also paired well with the 2009 Montecillo Albarino I chose.

My recipe is a dutch oven recipe (this filled up my 5 quart round dutch oven) that was more or less developed from the following recipes:

http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/Rfisa.htm
http://www.food.com/recipe/rfissa-moroccan-chicken-with-lentils-274177
http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/pancakes/r/Msemen_recipe.htm
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/perfect-roast-chicken-recipe/index.html

Ingredients:
1 (full recipe) msemen bread
5-6 Pound whole chicken

Marinade:
1 Lemon
2 Large Yellow Onions
1/2 cup olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons of peeled and pureed ginger (1 large piece)
1 heaping tablespoon ras el hanout spice mix (I used this one by Zamouri Spices)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon turmeric

Lentils:
1/2 cup uncooked lentils, soaked for 3-4 hours and drained
2 tablespoons fenugreek seeds, soaked for 3-4 hours and drained
1 teaspoon saffron threads, heated gently and then crumbled
1 small handful fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 small handful fresh parsley, finely chopped
3 cups water
1 teaspoon ghee (I used this instead of smen)

1. Mix salt, pepper, ras el hanout and turmeric.
2. Quarter lemon and 1 of the onions. Dice the other onion.
3. Wash chicken and remove giblets.
4. Stuff quartered lemon and quartered onion into chicken cavity.
5. Place chicken in dutch oven and coat in olive oil.
6. Rub chicken skin with dry spice mix.
7. Add diced onion and pureed ginger to dutch oven and distribute evenly around chicken.
8. Cover chicken and leave in the fridge to marinate at least 2 hours or over night (I marinated mine for about 7 hours).
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9. Turn oven on to preheat to 350°F. Heat chicken (still in the dutch oven) on stove covered on medium heat until a rich sauce has formed for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
10. Add the drained lentils, drained fenugreek seeds, saffron, parsley, cilantro and 3 cups of water (lentils and fenugreek should be submerged).
11. Cover and place in preheated oven for 2 hours.
12. Remove chicken from oven and test to see that it's done. Spoon lentils into a bowl and transfer liquid into a sauce pan. Reduce sauce to desired thickness over medium heat and if desired, add a few teaspoons of corn starch (dissolved in a bit of water) to thicken. Stir in spoon full of ghee.
13. Return chicken to oven uncovered and broil for a few minutes if crispy skin is desired, checking frequently to be sure that it's not burning.
14. To serve shred msmen and arrange on a large plate. Place chicken on top cut however you like. Top with lentils and some of the sauce, reserving some to serve on the side.

Msemen

I made this bread because it is shredded and used in Chicken Rfissa, however it was fantastic by itself and I would recommend making it for general eating purposes. For this bread, I more or less followed a recipe exactly. The recipe recommends making a syrup of butter and honey which I did not try because I think it sounds gross. I also highly recommend checking out the tutorial for preparing the squares.

You can really taste the olive oil in this, so I recommend keeping that in mind and using a mild one if you don't like strong olive oil flavor. Also, you'll need a lot so don't use your $50 bottle either. I'm copying and pasting the recipe here in case About.com goes the way of the dodo.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 60 minutes
Yield: Approx. 20 msemen (4" square)
Ingredients:

* 3 1/2 cups flour (340 g)
* 1/2 cup fine semolina (90g)
* 2 teaspoons sugar
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1/4 teaspoon yeast
* 1 1/2 cups warm water (approx. 1/3 liter)
* * * *
* For folding and cooking the msemen:
* 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup fine semolina
* 1/4 cup very soft unsalted butter

Preparation:

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add 1 1/2 cups of warm water, and mix to form a dough. Add more water if necessary to make a dough that is soft and easy to knead, but not sticky. If the dough is too sticky to handle, add a little flour one tablespoon at a time.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes, (or knead the dough in a stand mixer with dough hook for 5 minutes), until the dough is very smooth and elastic.

At this point, I recommend looking at the aforementioned tutorial about how to fold the msemen but I'm going to include my pictures below because there can never be too many pictures.

Dough balls and initial folded squares

Flattened squares. Unlike the tutorial, I chose to use a rolling pin.

Cooking in the pan. These did indeed take several minutes and I just rotated them out as they were done. If you have a pan that heats evenly (the one above does not), I'd suggest using that one.

My Yam Curry Recipe

This is a recipe that I put together for my friend Karissa years ago that I decided to rescue from my poor abandoned MySpace account that I should probably just go ahead and delete. This is more of a list of how I make this than an actual coherent recipe and it is definitely possible to reduce the quantity on it.

Ingredients:
2-3 large yams
1 diced large onion
2 diced tomatoes
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
mustard seeds
peanut oil - you can use other oil here, but this recipe is good w/ peanut
4 Thai chillis (you might wanna go fewer than that)
4 cloves garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
red chilli powder (to taste)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 tsp ground corriander
5 or so curry leaves
1 clove or a little bit of ground cloves - don't go crazy with cloves or food=yuck
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
black mustard seeds
cumin (ground or whole)
These next ingredients are things you may have trouble finding anywhere but an Indian store. Dal doesn't add anything to the flavor really. It's more texture.
35g jaggery - You can use brown sugar to taste instead
urad dal
chana dal

1. Peel and cube yams. Cook in boiling water for 6-7 minutes until pretty much cooked but not mushy. Drain water and set yams aside
2. Food process garlic, ginger, and chillis together (this is not a normal thing to do. It's just what I do because it's easy. Don't breathe over the top of the food processor because chillis will burn the crap out of your lungs.)
3. Heat 1 Tbsp. of peanut oil over medium-low heat. Add a tsp. or so of mustard seeds. Add a few tsp. of urad dal if you have it. Also add cumin if you have whole cumin. When the urad dal is a little brown, or after a minute or so if you don't have urad dal, add curry leaves.
4. Add onions and food processed stuff and sautee for about 10 minutes/till onions are translucent.
5. Add salt, pepper, cumin if using ground, corriander, turmeric, cinnamon, clove, and jaggery/brown sugar
6. Raise heat to medium. Add tomatoes, about a cup of water, and chana dal if you have it. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, measure out yogurt and stir until smooth. Allow to sit out of fridge and come to around room temp.
7. Stir and cook for another 10 minutes adding more water if necessary. Continue cooking until tomatoes are mushy.
8. Lower heat to medium low. Stir in yogurt and cover. Let cook for about 5 minutes.
9. Stir in yams and cover, allowing to cook for another 10 minutes or so so that the yams absorb the flavor.