I piled up two oval platters with sweetly spiced Chicken Fattee for Jana’s birthday dinner. 

Chicken fattee is a multi layered, textural and tasty dish that’s become part of my home cooking repertoire and often makes an appearance at family gatherings. It’s such a crowd pleaser and the various elements can be made ahead of time and then simply warmed through and assembled prior to serving. Which is just as well, because today (mid-week Wednesday!!) is my daughter Jana’s birthday and I’ve been preparing her celebratory family feast. 

Keep whisking Jana!
This photo was taken 13 years ago
 and my little girl is now celebrating her 15th birthday. 


Earlier this afternoon I turned off my stove and tasted the cinnamon scented sauce that was drizzled in between the crispy chicken and buttery Lebanese crusts, saffron rice and fried eggplant. I was sure my  birthday girl would be pleased and most likely notice the distinctive cooking aromas when she arrived home. In fact this morning, Jana had declared that her favourite three dishes are spaghetti bolognese, garlicky vongole and chicken fattee and that she could easily eat them “all the time”. I reminded her that she does dive into a bowl of my super tasty bolognese on a weekly basis, taking any leftovers, piled into a themos, to school for lunch. Vongole becomes an easy summery addition to our family table with our youngest toddler Maksim deftly licking every last morsel of sauce and clam off the shells. As our family has grown to an energetic team of eight, I’ve resorted to using two pots for preparing vongole because I now need two kilos of clam covered shells to feed them all! 

The recipe printed at the bottom of this page for Chicken Fattee features one large, plump chook. We have grandparents joining us for dinner and enthusiastic teenage appetites, and so today I have used two 1.5 kilo birds and doubled the spices. I also boosted the saffron rice by an extra cup, an pinch more of saffron and added the required extra chicken stock (1 cup of rice to 1.5 cups of liquid).


I’ve also been busy assembling Jana’s birthday cake – Chocolate Roulade with fragrant Strawberries and Maltesers – which featured a filling of crunchy Maltesers (her favourite chocolates), strawberries macerated in white balsamic, and vanilla mascarpone cream. I baked the cake early this morning whilst my toddler wrapped himself around my legs (not even Lego or Avengers figurines could distract him, because of course whatever I am baking in the kitchen, to a deadline, is infinitely more interesting than a plastic Thor or construction blocks. 

Unfortunately I made the fatal mistake of leaving the cake base in the oven four minutes longer than recommended. Four minutes doesn’t seem like a crucial amount of time on an ordinary day, but today was not ordinary and I had probably overloaded myself with “to do” tasks (will I ever learn…no!). I ignored my instincts and wrapped up the cake base in a neat cocoon of baking paper and a clean tea towel and left it to cool. By the time I turned my attention to unwrapping the cake it was late afternoon. As I unrolled it, I noticed a crack forming which spread across the width of the cake. I continued to unroll and another formed, followed by a third. Instead of an aerated, moist rectangle of chocolaty delicious-ness, I stared down at three deflated looking cracked pieces of overcooked cake. Into the bin! 

There is always a solution and so I started gathering ingredients and started again. I love Karen Martini’s recipe for chocolate roulade, but I just didn’t have the time to separate and whisk five egg yolks and whites separately and then fold in dry ingredients in stages. It was 5pm and I had no cake to speak of! So I instead used a a Swiss roll recipe by David Herbert and added 2 tablespoons of cocoa. At least I had prepared the various fillings and by this stage my toddler Maksim was sitting happily next to his grandfather and munching on fruit. 


Time was of the essence now so I revved up my trusty Ilve oven, switched on the KitchenAid and set to work. Within 15 minutes I had the base in the oven. This time I watched the time like a hawke and whipped out the cake in 10 minutes. Perfect! The rest worked like a dream, but I did momentarily hold my breath as I carefully unrolled cake base version #2. 
Adding the fillings was swift, the glaze poured like liquid velvet and we still managed to sit down to dinner at a reasonable time. Phew! As for the flavour – so satisfyingly delicious! sitting the strawberries in white balsamic really intensified the fragrant strawberry flavour which worked beautifully with the moist chocolate base, vanilla scented mascarpone filling and subtle crunch of Malteser chocolate. I took a risk concocting a brand new dessert on my daughter Jana’s birthday, but gosh I’m glad I did because Jana was thrilled with the result. 

Happy birthday my beautiful girl! 


Recipes…

Chicken Fattee to serve 8 people ( or 10 – 12 if using two 1.5 kilo chickens)

1. Start with the CHICKEN

Buy the best quality chicken you can find. You need a plump, juicy chook about 1.8 kilograms preferably organic or free-range. Do not buy one of those scrawny looking birds left behind on the supermarket fridge shelf at the end of the day. The better the produce to start with, the better the flavour at the end. 

My spice mix for Chicken Fattee


Preheat the oven to 220 degrees on a conventional setting or 200 degrees fan forced. Rub the chicken all over (and sprinkle inside the cavity) with the following mixture:

1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon sumac
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon dried coriander leaves
2 heaped teaspoons sea salt

*If using two 1.5 kilo chickens, double the spice mix quantity. 

Then, squeeze over the juice of 2 lemons and drizzle with olive oil. Push the halves of the lemons into the cavity of the chicken. If you have preserved lemons on hand then you can use these instead. Rinse them first under running water to remove excess salt, then whizz up in a food processor or chop finely and rub over the chook and also place inside the cavity. 

Bake for 80 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven. Cut up the chicken into pieces and once it has cooled slightly (just enough to handle comfortably), use your very clean hands to pull the chicken meat off the bones. Slice into portions that can easily be served up.  Cover with foil to keep warm until you are ready to assemble with the other ingredients. * If using two 1.5 kilo chickens, bake for 60 minutes only. 

2. While the chicken is roasting, start on the SAUCE.

You will need: 

5 cloves of garlic finely diced 
olive oil
1 x cinnamon stick
2 x 400 grams tins of crushed tomatoes

Fry the garlic and cinnamon in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until the garlicky scent is noticeable. Then add the tinned tomatoes, season to taste and simmer for 30 minutes. Set aside when ready. 

Fried eggplant waiting to be assembled with the other ingredients. 

3. While the sauce is simmering, prepare the EGGPLANT. 

You will need:

2 x eggplants (I peel all the skin off mine for this dish)
1 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons olive oil

Dice the eggplant into bite sized pieces and toss in a bowl with the salt. Once the sauce is ready, rinse the eggplant cubes under cold running water and drain well on paper towels or a clean tea towel. 

Heat up the olive oil over a medium setting and fry the eggplant in batches until golden brown. Drain the fried pieces on paper towels and set aside, covering with aluminium foil to keep warm. 

4. The RICE can also be started while the eggplant is steeping in the salt, the sauce simmering and the chicken roasting. 

You will need:
1 small onion finely chopped
1 x cinnamon stick
75 grams unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
400 grams basmati or long grain rice (washed under running water in a sieve to remove the starch)
sea salt to taste
3 cups (750 mls) chicken stock, or a combination of half stock and half water 
1 x 400 gram tin cooked chickpeas drained and washed (If you are not a fan of chickpeas then you can leave them out without destroying this dish, but I do encourage you to give them a go because they compliment the chicken perfectly.)

Saute the onion, cinnamon and salt in the butter over a low heat for 10 minutes until the onion turns golden and sticky. Add the washed, drained rice and stir until coated with the buttery mixture and the grains start to turn opaque. 

Add the liquid which should be at room temperature. Scatter over the chickpeas. Place a piece of baking paper over the top of the rice pressing gently against the mixture. This will help the rice to steam perfectly and avoid losing moisture. 






Cover with the saucepan lid, bring to the boil briefly and then simmer for 10 – 12 minutes until the rice is cooked, but certainly not mushy. Lift the lid, fluff up with a fork and set aside until needed. 






Buttery crisp-bread roughly sliced.

5. Finally the CRISP-BREAD

Take 3 large rounds of Lebanese bread and brush over the top of each one with melted butter. I used 30 grams in total. Place each piece on your oven trays for 10 minutes until they crisp up. Remove carefully onto a chopping board and using a large knife, cut each one into 12 triangles. It doesn’t matter if the bread breaks or the triangles are uneven. This is a casual, rustic dish, not fine dining. Set aside. 


6. Time to ASSEMBLE your Chicken Fattee. You also need plain, thick yoghurt and about a cup of coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander leaves. 

Find a large, flat platter (or even two if making more which is what I did this evening) – it doesn’t matter what the shape is. Start with a layer of crispbread, followed by the rice, then the chicken and roasting juices, then the eggplant, drizzle over tomato sauce, yoghurt and parsley or fresh coriander (I forgot to add this…it’s now in a Glad Snaplock bag in my fridge!). Continue to layer up the dish in this order finishing with extra dollops of yoghurt and fresh herbs. 

Provide a broad salad servers to plate up this dish for your family or guests. 

Chocolate Roulade to serve 10 -12 people

4 eggs preferably organic or free range
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 grams caster sugar plus an extra 2 tablespoons caster sugar
125 grams self raising flour
2 tablespoons sifted cocoa

3 layers of fillings: Creamy
100 ml thickened cream
100 grams mascarpone
1/2 tablespoon icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

(Whisk these two together until combined and just thickened)

Fragrant
1 punnet strawberries finely chopped and mixed with 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar. Set aside for 30 minutes. 

Crunch
2 cups maltesers roughly chopped into quarters. 

Decorations
2 cups of whole Malteser chocolates
Handful of dried rose petals (available from good grocery and kitchen supply stores)

MethodPreheat the oven to 200 degrees on a conventional setting (180 degrees fan forced). 

Grease and line a rectangular baking pan measuring 30cm x 20cm. 

Place a clean tea towel on the bench and then a piece of baking paper over the top. Sprinkle evenly with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. This will be used to roll up the cake base as soon as it comes out of the oven. 

Using an electric mixer, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and sugar until the mixture becomes thick, creamy and slightly pale in colour.

Sift in the self raising flour and cocoa and whisk gently until just combined and smooth. 

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 10 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. 

Immediately turn the tin upside down so that the cake lands gently on the baking paper/tea towel. Roll up the entire lot and leave on the bench to cool completely. 

When cooled, unroll and smooth over the creamy filling. Drain the strawberries in a colander and then sprinkle over evenly. Scatter across the Maltesers. See photo: 


Re-roll, and then pour over the chocolate ganache glaze. Use a palette knife to smooth evenly. Immediately sprinkle with edible dried rose petals and add whole Malteser balls if you wish. Place in the fridge to set for at least half an hour. Serve at room temperature when ready.