Tuesday Night Dinner Party: The Poor Man’s Saffron

I’d recently resolved to make my home a wellspring of low-key dinner parties by having people over every Tuesday night, and this week was definitely a cheat. Instead of using this as a way to reel in out-of-touch old friends or get to know new ones, as was the plan, I fell back on a more predictable guest list. We invited our close friends and neighbors, Brad and Curtis, their two sons, and Curtis’ mother, whom we dine with all the time anyway. My mom was in town from Baltimore to provide some extra baby-holding, ebullient storytelling, and the occasional frisson of tension over proper housekeeping techniques.

This whole entertaining jag of mine is inspired by Curtis, who is as compulsive an entertainer as I’ve ever met. He grew up in Mexico, studied at the Cordon Bleu in Paris in between entrepreneurial gigs, and can’t help but cook for six people at a time. We are good collaborators—he’s not so invested in his meals that he won’t let me dress the salad or carve a chicken, and yet he has a distinct style of his own. He cultivates dishes he can make again and again: a Hazan-ian braised pork shoulder, flank steak with a cilantro salsa, and on special occasions, paella cooked in the Big Green Egg. Special occasion or not, his house is always welcoming, not just for us but for a rotating group of friends, and kids and adults manage to co-exist in a two-state solution. (As at our house, they are generally fed first and left to play while the big people eat.) Until Tuesday night dinners started at our house, I was happy to cook with him at his house and get away without washing dishes, but as a born again entertainer, I’m determined to pay Brad and him back for all those lazy nights.

In any case, the dinner the other night was unexpectedly awesome. I pulled an old trick, copped from the Eastern Mediterranean, of marinating chicken in yogurt with garlic, coriander, and—well, it was supposed to be saffron. But I couldn’t find saffron—I found it later on my desk—so I went for something else of a similar color: orange zest. I might be simplifying my preparations, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like my spices, so I wasn’t about to ditch the idea of saffron entirely. Somehow the coriander-orange combo (which you might find in certain Swedish rye breads, I might note) came out immensely yummy. Vegetarians, take note: Yogurt garlic marinades work really well on firm tofu as well.

I also cleaned out the refrigerator with a mix of all the greens I had on hand, braised with garlic, onions, and topped with some tahini thinned with water, lemon juice, and some grated garlic.

Finally I threw together a bulgur salad with pistachios, golden raisins, and a lot of lemon juice—a tabbouleh for the pre-tomato season. Given the pallid state of most deli bulgur salads, this one seemed to surprise everyone by being really vibrant (here’s where a lot of tasting and fine tuning with salt, lemon juice and olive oil pays off.). I like bulgur because, it’s made with is a whole grain, so you get extra credit for it, but at the same time, it doesn’t take an hour to cook—only about 15 minutes. I did this first bit in the morning as I was making breakfast for the kids, and then let it cool on a sheet pan in the fridge.

One of the conundrums of entertaining, even low-key entertaining, seems to be how to keep it very simple, and yet still serve enough in terms of quantity and variety to make it suitable for guests. While I try to curb my ridiculous condiment and side-dish impulses, I still don’t want everyone to be sitting around bored (and perhaps slightly hungry) after eating just a drumstick. This night’s dinner was nicely balanced, but with three distinct dishes—the chicken, the bulgur and the greens—it wasn’t quite minimalist.

Bulgur salad for the pre-tomato season

2 spring onions (or shallots) finely sliced
Juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste
½ cup pistachios
4 cups cooked and cooled bulgur (see below)
½ cup golden raisins
1 cup Italian parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sumac
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
Juice of one or two lemons, to taste
Kosher salt to taste

In a small bowl, mix the juice of one lemon with the sliced onions, and let sit for 15 minutes or so. Toast the pistachios in a 300-degree oven until fragrant and a little browned. Let the nuts cool, and then chop coarsely. Mix the bulgur together with the onions, parsley, raisins, olive oil, sumac, and cilantro, and the onion- lemon combination. Season the salad with salt and additional lemon juice or olive oil to taste. Serve chilled or close to room temperature; it can sit around without a problem.

Cooked Bulgur

2 cups bulgur
4 cups water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan, and whisk in the bulgur and olive oil. Cover the pot, and turn the heat down to a simmer until all the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Fluff the grains with a fork and spread out on a sheet pan; place in the refrigerator to cool. Makes about 5 cups, but I like to keep a little unseasoned bulgur around to heat up with milk and a little honey for breakfast.

Chicken thighs with orange and coriander

A version of the Middle Eastern golden chicken, makes enough for 6-8 people, but tastes good cold, too.

16 chicken thighs
Kosher salt, to taste, about 2 teaspoons
½ teaspoon cayenne or Aleppo pepper
2 tablespoons coriander seeds, crushed
Zest of one orange
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic, grated
Cilantro leaves, optional

Early in the day or in the night before cooking, mix together the salt, pepper, and coriander. Lay the chicken thighs on a sheet pan and season evenly on both sides with the salt mixture. Mix together the orange zest, olive oil, garlic, and yogurt, and, using hands or a brush, paint some of the mixture on both sides of each thigh. Wrap and refrigerate for several hours. Adjust the oven rack to the upper third of the oven, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and lay the chicken in a single layer on a sheet pan, skin up. Bake the chicken until it is cooked through (juices run clear, not pink) and the skin is brown and blistered in spots, on the order of 15-20 minutes (chicken thighs vary widely in size). If the chicken is done before the blistering bit, finish it under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Garnish with a handful of cilantro leaves if you have them.