Çerkez tavuğu

Having sniffled and sweated my way through a particularly nasty cold, I celebrated my first day of feeling well with a trip to Manchester with Amy this week; we did a bit of window shopping, returned something hideous I’d bought and most importantly we dropped in to a Turkish restaurant at 205 Deansgate: Topkapi Palace. Apparently Roger’s been to the real deal on a school trip; alas, I am but a poor lout who’s never been to Turkey. I’d seen this place the week before on my way to the Museum of Science and Industry and noted how it actually had people sitting inside, as well as a decent lunch menu of £7.95 for two courses, so we decided to give it a try.

I have a random insatiable fascination with borek, so ordered that for my starter and wasn’t disappointed in the crisp little parcels but Amy’s Çerkez tavuğu, or Circassian chicken, was the highlight. The menu simply stated it was “shredded chicken breast with walnuts, hint of garlic and mayo” and is apparently Georgian in origin due to its use of walnuts. It looked like tuna mayonnaise on the plate -not exactly appealing- but once piled on a warm pitta it was a mouthful of creamy, garlicky, nutty heaven. Especially when twinned with a spoonful of freshly made chilli sauce. Banish all thoughts of the gloop from kebab vans: that chilli sauce was enough to get me booking a ticket to Istanbul. At any rate, we’ll be going back to the Topkapi Palace to try some more of their meze plates. When we got back home I couldn’t stop thinking about our wonder dip so googled a mixture of recipes and knocked one up. We made an obscene amount and it’s already been eaten.

Serves 6 as part of a meze feast.

Ingredients:

500g chicken on the bone (I used drumsticks but thigh would be good)

1 bay leaf

1 pint chicken stock

5 cloves garlic

2-3 slices bread (I used some stale sourdough)

Two handfuls walnuts

Parsley

Sweet paprika

Mayonnaise

White wine vinegar/lemon juice

Method:

1)      First of all, snugly fit the chicken into a pot and cover with the stock. Add the bay leaf, bring to the boil and simmer gently, poaching the meat until it is tender. For me, as I used drumsticks, this took about 40 minutes. The meat must be moist, so poaching is the perfect way to achieve this. In the last five minutes, add four of the garlic cloves (still in their skins) and poach until soft.

2)      Break the bread into pieces and cover with enough of the warm stock to soak in a bowl. Adding bread obviously helps pad the dish out but by soaking it in stock, more flavour and moisture is added.

3)      When the bread is sufficiently squidgy, place it in a food processor along with the walnuts. Pulse only briefly; you want the walnuts to be broken up but not too finely: they must still be crunchy. Set this mixture aside in a mixing bowl.

4)      Rip up a handful of parsley and place in the food processor, along with the poached chicken and poached garlic (skin removed). Pulse lightly until the chicken breaks down- about the consistency of a chicken mayo sandwich filling- but it’s up to you how chunky you go!

5)      Add the chicken mixture to the walnuts and bread. Add salt and pepper and a teaspoon of paprika. Now, our dip was about the consistency of hummus, so think about this when you’re adding the mayonnaise; I went for about two tablespoons of mayo before adding almost a ladleful of stock. It might sound weird adding chicken stock to this but you’ve already established the creamy flavours with the mayo, so the stock just loosens it up as well as adding more flavour. Season to taste; add a dessertspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to lighten up the flavours; the garlic should be strongly coming through as well as the crushed, chunky walnuts so if either of these elements are lacking, add some more. It needs a big garlic hit so press a raw clove of garlic and stir it in for punch.

Serve with warm pittas and a spicy tomato salsa. We roasted 4 cloves of garlic, a packet of cheap vine tomatoes, a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes and a yellow pepper until charred. Blitz until fine with coriander, salt, pepper and lime juice.