Med-School Turkish Chicken

During the fall 2018 semester, I had the heaviest teaching load of my semester, and though I continued to cook a lot, I did not take much time for innovation. I apparently took even less for blogging about it -- not only did I fall off my share of the once-per-week blogging, but I even did cook a new recipe and forgot what it was before I could get it into this space. Sorry, dear readers.

With grades (though not grade-haggling) from that semester behind me, I am happily embarking on a very different sort of semester: a sabbatical! I will still teach an online course (the chance to do extra work is my university's approach to equitable pay), but will have no in-person classes. I have plenty of academic work to do, but at my own pace. Which means more blogging, including food blogging.

It is perhaps appropriate that my comeback recipe is from fellow academics. Some time in the early 2000s (no publication date is given), the International Club of the University of Massachusetts  Medical School self-published Mélange (An International Cookbook). The publisher -- Fundcraft -- is still very much in business, but its on-line ordering is not working at the moment, so it is not clear whether the book is still available. I have no idea how or when we acquired it.

These are not professional cooks, but rather professional students sharing their favorite recipes and, by extension, their cultures from throughout the world. It is a wonderful little volume we should consult more often! As far as I can tell, its only previous appearance here was Pam's 2013 Syrian Rice post.

So, what did I cook? Contributors Fiorenza and Erdem Orberk call it Cerkez Chicken, in reference to the Caucasian people who were displaced to Turkey by the Russian invasion of the 1830s. Herewith, the recipe as they wrote it:

Click to enlarge

I was looking for this because we had several boneless chicken breasts that I needed to prepare; I used these instead of a whole chicken, and assumed that "simmer" in this case is equivalent to poach. I simmered them until cooked through. Because this did not yield a genuine stock, I substituted a vegetable stock. I should probably have used less than the 2 cups called for.

We had chopped walnuts onhand, which I further minced, along with half a red bell pepper. (The other half went into our dinner salad.) With no old bread on hand, I used a couple handfuls of Triscuits.

Otherwise, I followed the directions above and added one step that I assume was intended: I put this in a small casserole dish, with the pepper-butter mixture drizzled on top, and baked at 350 for 25 minutes. Honestly, it could have used a bit more heat and a bit less liquid. Still, this was a lean, delicious meal that we will be repeating.

I will also be browsing Mélange in some of my upcoming spare time!

Lagniappe: This geographer could not resist providing a bit more information about the Cerkez (also known as Circassian) expulsion. The map below is from The Politics of Genocide Claims and the Circassian Diaspora, published by Martin W. Lewis in GeoCurrents, January 24, 2012.

Map by Martin W. Lewis; Click to enlarge