This incredible musakhan recipe was crafted by Heifa Odeh, author of the cookbook Dine in Palestine. It's just one of 60 authentic recipes you'll find in her book, which is a fantastic introduction to Palestinian cuisine.
Republished with permission from Fufu's Kitchen.
Heifa Odeh's Recipe for Palestinian Musakhan
Servings: 12
Time Required: 2.5 hours (1 hour prep, 1.5 hours cooking)
Ingredients:
Chicken Prep
- 4 whole chickens, halved or quartered
- 3 lemons or limes
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- sprinkling of salt
Onions
- 10 large white or yellow onions, diced
- 2 cups Palestinian olive oil
- ½ tbsp cumin
- salt & pepper to taste
- ⅓ cup sumac
Chicken Marinade
- ¼ cup Palestinian olive oil
- 1 lemon
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1.5 tbsp allspice or seven spice
- 2 tbsp your favourite chicken seasoning
- ⅓ cup sumac
Other
- 6 large thick round flatbreads or smaller individual flatbreads. Taboon is preferred, but Greek pita or naan work as well
- ½ cup toasted almonds (halved or slivered)
- Plain unsweetened yoghurt (optional)
Steps
- In a large pot, add all the diced onions. Cover and cook on medium heat, while sporadically stirring so as not to burn the bottom. The onions will start to soften.
- In the meantime, use the ingredients in the chicken prep to clean the chicken halves/quarters. Let them soak in this for 10 minutes before rinsing off and patting dry.
- Now, mix all the ingredients for the chicken marinade until it looks sauce-like. Add all the chicken pieces to a lightly oiled baking pan, then completely coat with the chicken marinade.
- Cover the chicken and bake in a preheated 215°C oven for 1.5 hours.
- Back to the onions! By the time the chicken's in the oven, the onions should be very soft and translucent. Now add the salt, sumac, cumin, and olive oil. Let this simmer together for about 10 minutes, then drain the olive oil from the onions and set it aside.
- Take out the thick flatbread you will be using for the dish. First, oil the bread evenly on both sides with the drained oil from the previous step. Then, top evenly with the cooked onions. Repeat for all flatbreads.
- Bake the onion-topped flatbreads in the oven at 175°C for about 5-10 min until warm and starting to crisp. Then grill the flatbreads in the oven for about 2 minutes until they are crisped at the edges but still soft in the centre.
- To finish, top the flatbreads with the cooked chicken and toasted almonds. Enjoy with plain yoghurt and/or Arabic salad.
What is Musakhan?
Musakhan is considered by many to be Palestine’s national dish. It comprises a soft yet crisped-edge flatbread topped with jammy caramelised sumac onions, moist roasted chicken, and toasted nuts. It is the ultimate cozy comfort meal.
Why is Musakhan Palestine's National Dish?
Probably because it reflects the local ingredients of the land, such as olive oil, sumac, and taboon bread, which are all characteristic of Palestinian cooking.
Musakhan is always made to celebrate the olive harvest season, which takes place annually in October – but it's also a favourite year-round. Palestine is known for its beautiful agriculture, especially its olive trees, which are tended to with much love and care. The olives are picked and pressed into a rich oil, which is so fresh that it will "burn" the back of your throat.
Olive oil is used in almost every meal in Palestinian cooking. Ask my father what his favourite food is, and he would say bread dipped in olive oil from his homeland.
What is Taboon Bread?
This traditional Palestinian yeasted bread is typically made in a dome-shaped clay oven (known as a "taboon") over a bed of rocks. Taboon bread is the foundation of musakhan. It should be crisp on the edges but soft and slightly chewy throughout. Here's my mother's fresh batch, as an example:
If you can't find taboon bread, you can use Greek pita or Indian naan instead. You just need to make sure it's thick, in order to hold the weight of all the toppings.
What Does "Musakhan" Mean?
Musakhan translates to “reheated”. Palestinians are resourceful and traditionally never let anything go to waste, including stale bread. So, they would dunk the flatbread known as "khubbuz taboon" into the oil they harvest from their land, to make it extra special and tasty. That bread is used as the foundation for this delicious dish.
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About the Author
Heifa Odeh is a Palestinian-American recipe developer and the winner of Saveur magazine’s 2019 Best Food Culture Blog. She teaches a popular Arab cuisine cooking course online. She lives with her family in Chicago, Illinois.
For more recipes by Heifa, buy her cookbook Dine in Palestine – available in NZ and Australia at Bayyāra.