Etti’s Chicken Thighs
My Instagram feed has news photos and food photos. This week the food photos showed some pretty wonderful, cozy quarantine feasts, challahs and sourdoughs. The news photos showed pictures of thousands of cars waiting in a giant parking lot for handouts from the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
Ingredients
- 12 chicken thighs boneless ,skinless
- 2 t soy sauce
- 1 t balsamic vinegar
- 3 T olive oil
- 1 t Dijon mustard
- 2/3 cup date syrup
- 2 cloves crushed garlic
- 1 t paprika
Instructions
- Mix everything in a large bowl and set aside until ready to cook.
- Best to let it marinate an hour or more, but you can do less.
- Preheat BBQ grill to high or your oven broiler. For the broiler, line sheet pan with two layers of foil. Take out pargiot and lay flat on foil. Broil about 7-10 minutes. Check—they should look light brown with darker spots.
- Flip over and cook 5-7 minutes on the other side. Check for the same. Remove from oven, then cut one open to check for doneness.
- On a BBQ grill cook about the same time
Notes
In case we’d been able to ignore it before, this pandemic has laid bare the day-to-day effects of America’s gross economic inequality. The New York Times reported this week that one-fifth of young mothers say their children are not getting enough to eat.
For those of us fortunate to be eating well, the lesson is clear: we have to extend the blessing of our food to others. That can mean supporting local food banks, supporting restaurant workers, and urging political representatives to extend the food-stamp program, and, as always, not wasting the food we are fortunate to have.
This week’s menu, which you can watch me cook live on Friday via The Forward’s Facebook page, features dishes that my friends, mentors and teachers have shared with me over the years.
The boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinated in date syrup come from my Israeli sister-in-law, Etti Levy. The recipe for cauliflower, tahini and date syrup is from the Israeli chef Erez Komorovsky. It’s widely copied, but I saw Erez make it first and best -– as he does so many dishes. And the olive-oil chocolate mousse is from Joan Nathan, who has shared not just her recipes, but the blessings of her knowledge, talent and friendship with me.
Their generosity inspires me to share the blessing of food with the many people in this rich country who need it now, more than ever.
Please join me for the cooking demonstration, Friday, May 9, at 3 p.m. EDT, 12 noon PDT. Click here to sign up for a reminder.
