August 18, 2008. Marlow and Sons. “Dinner with Mike,” so says my calendar. People had been raving about the “chicken under a brick” served at the cosy, farm-to-table-esque restaurant nestled under Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Bridge. Michael, a dear friend since childhood and fellow Michigander-in-NYC, had convinced me to join him for dinner, raving about this chicken, telling me I would love it and that we’d have oysters too, and that I could tell him about my first day of law school and my mother’s recent cancer diagnosis. And so we did, and so I did. Many times over the years that followed. With and without Mike.
While it seemed revolutionary at the time in its simplicity, in New York City dining circles at least, it turns out that Marlow and Sons’ chicken, though exceptional, was nothing special. I didn’t know it then, but Italians have a dish like this: pollo al mattone. And guess what? So do Azeris, Uzbeks and Georgians: tabaka. And they have for centuries. Chicken is prepared as spatchcocked chicken and then fried on a cast-iron or heavy metal pan while being flattened and weighted down by something very heavy. In Iran, meanwhile, they have one of my favourite dishes ever: jujeh kebab, a luscious, saffrony, buttery chicken, typically grilled over the barbecue.
This is my brick chicken. This is my jujeh chicken. A chicken tabaka, a pollo al mattone. An ode to friendship and to simplicity, and it is incredible.
Enjoy with a crisp white wine, freshly shucked oysters, wilted greens, rice, a crumpled linen napkin, and a circa-2010 indie-rock playlist. Imagine you’re in Brooklyn, by way of Iran, Georgia and Azerbaijan. It’s a lovely place to be.
You will need two bricks for this recipe. Yes, you read that right: regular house bricks. Preferably clean.
PS: RIP Marlow and Sons. We miss you.
This recipe is by Anna Ansari and is kindly reproduced with her permission from Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing.
Serves: 4
Prep time: 20 minutes, plus at least 4 hours marinating
Cook time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
Marinade
Method
- Combine all the marinade ingredients in a large non-reactive mixing bowl.
- Add the chicken thighs to the bowl and mix well to coat, then cover and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
- When you are nearly ready for your meal, remove the chicken thighs from their saffrony tub. Scrape most of the marinade off the chicken and discard the remainder.
- Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add your chicken thighs to the pan, skin-side down. Plop a second pan on top of the chicken, making sure the bottom is spick-and-span clean. Alternatively, cover your chicken thighs with a bit of baking parchment before setting the pan down on them. Then place your bricks in the upper pan. Step back and wait for the magic to happen.
- Let the chicken cook, undisturbed, under the weight of a pan and two bricks, for 10–13 minutes, or until the internal temperature of your chicken reaches 68°C. Depending on what type of meat thermometer you use, you may need to carefully remove the bricks and pan to take the chicken’s temperature.
- Once the chicken hits 68°C, remove the bricks and top pan and turn the chicken over. Add the butter to the pan and watch it melt. Use a spoon to baste the chicken a couple of times with the melted butter. Take a look at that glorious, golden, browned, buttery, glistening skin. It’s only minutes now before you get to eat it. Be patient. Get excited.
- Return the pan and bricks to the top of your golden, skin-side-up chicken, and cook the chicken for another 2 minutes under their weight.
- Once again, carefully remove the bricks and upper pan before transferring your chicken thighs to a platter to briefly rest, before you eat them and they blow your mind.
