That Translator Can Cook: Musakhan

Roasted chicken and caramelized onions seasoned with sumac, baked on pita bread, and drizzled with olive oil.

المسخن-الفلسطيني.jpg

 

 Since I was supposed to be at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival and it’s my birthday, I chose my favorite [Palestinian] dish: musakhan.

There are two main versions of musakhan: (1) the chicken and onions are roasted on top of pita bread in the oven and (2) the chicken and onions are rolled in a very thin bread (called shrak or markook) like a little musakhan wrap.

Musakhan is one of the most popular and well-known Palestinian dishes. According to a Friday article, it was traditionally made after the olive-pressing season “to gauge the quality of the olive oil-good olive oil won’t change color or turn bitter when it’s heated up to brown chicken and caramelize onions. This is also why the name of the dish is derived from the word ‘sakhan,’ to heat.”

 

This is how you make musakhan roasted on bread. The picture and recipe belong to Ruwaifi (روفي).

Ingredients

  • 2 chickens, washed and cleaned (each chicken should be cut in half)

  • 12 loaves of shrak (a very thin and large piece of unleavened bread)

  • 15 large red onions, julienned

  • 1 cup of olive oil

  • 4 cardamom pods

  • 1\ 2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

  • 1 teaspoon of black pepper

  • 1 teaspoon of seven-spice blend

  • A dash of salt

  • 4 tablespoons of ground sumac

  • 1/2 cup of olive oil (mixed with bouillon/broth)

For Garnish:

  • Roasted nuts to taste (almonds, pine nuts, cashews)

  • A sprinkle of minced parsley

Instructions

Put the chicken halves with some of the julienned onions, a cup of olive oil and spices (except for the sumac) in a baking pan. Cover the pan with foil and put it into a preheated (350ºF) oven for an hour or until the chicken is cooked completely. Lift the chicken from the resulting broth and oil.  Set it aside until needed.

Strain the chicken broth and put it in a bowl. Add the ½ cup of olive oil to it. Take the onions strained from the broth and add the sumac to them. Mix well, then put it in a bowl. Now, take a loaf of shrak, dip it in the chicken broth for a few seconds (so that doesn’t become soft [during cooking]), and put it on an oven-safe serving platter. Then sprinkle a few onions mixed with sumac on them (put 4 loaves of shrak alongside each other in the serving dish as the first layer).

Put the platter into the oven, set it on the oven rack and cook until golden brown. Then, take it out of the oven and add a dash of sumac and a few nuts. Repeat this process for each layer of shrak. Now, you should have 3 layers of shrak: each layer containing 4 loaves of shrak, browned and sprinkled with sumac and nuts.

For the last layer, lay the chicken halves on top and broil them with the shrak until they become a golden-brown color. Then, garnish with nuts you chose and minced parsley. Serve with sauces and laban rayeb (like tart yogurt). Bon appetit!


Translators’ Discussion:

  1. The word ‘رغيف’ means ‘loaf’, and I’ve found that ‘loaves’ is used to describe individual [whole] pieces of shrak/markook bread, which is why I used the phrasing in my translation. However, there’s something about ‘loaves’ that rubs me the wrong way. ‘Pieces’ doesn’t seem right because it could refer to cut-up pieces of shrak. Do any of you know/prefer alternative phrasing?

  2. What do you think about my translation of ‘حبات هيل’ as ‘cardamom pods’? I know that ‘حبات’ is used to refer to ‘pills, grains, pieces, etc…’ but I’ve never seen حبات used this way, so I thought I’d ask.

  3. When talking about dipping the shrak into broth, the phrase (in parentheses) ‘حتى لا يطرى’, which it means ‘so that it doesn’t become soft.’ I thought that didn’t make much sense, so that’s why I added ‘[during cooking]’. How would you have handled this? Do any of you have a different take on what ‘حتى لا يطرى’ meant?

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