Hey everybody!

Welcome back.

Happy dead ass middle of the goddamn offseason for the NFL. Motherfucker it’s a long way until September. One of the best ways to pass the time, especially during the summer?

Grilling things!

Or baseball.

/ducks

No, we’ll grill things today instead.

I want to introduce you to a new spice this morning. Aleppo pepper! Some of you may be familiar with it already but for those who aren’t familiar it’s a goddamn beauty.

According to the “wikis” 

“The Aleppo pepper (Arabic: فلفل حلبي‎ / ALA-LC: fulful Ḥalabī) is a variety of Capsicum annuum used as a spice, particularly in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. Also known as the Halaby pepper, it starts as pods, which ripen to a burgundy color, and then are semi-dried, de-seeded, then crushed or coarsely ground. The pepper flakes are known in Turkey as pul biber, and in Armenia as Haleb biber. The pepper is named after Aleppo, a long-inhabited city along the Silk Road in northern Syria, and is grown in Syria and Turkey.”

Also: “The Aleppo pepper has a moderate heat level of about 10,000 on the Scoville scale, with some fruitiness and mild, cumin-like undertones. Its flavor is similar to the ancho chile, but oilier and slightly salty; salt is often used in the drying process. It is fairly mild, with its heat building slowly, with a fruity raisin-like flavor. It has also been described as having the flavor of “sweetness, roundness and perfume of the best kind of sundried tomatoes, but with a substantial kick behind it.”

There you go!

I first heard of the pepper when our former food writer and definitely Sunday Gravy muse, Sarah, featured it in one of her food posts on our dear departed mother blog. In fact, that recipe is exactly what I am going to mimic today.

I found the pepper to be earthy, rich, not too hot but with a “roundness” and depth that was exceptional. I enjoyed it’s character so much that I “profiled” the shit out of it and it is featured in every recipe I’m about to give you. The recipes I encountered during my research said you can substitute a combination of paprika and red chili flakes instead of the Aleppo pepper but don’t do that if you can avoid it. This shit is easily found online. Amazon had that fucker on my doorstep the next day.

Another ingredient that will be repeated in every food item? Tomato paste.

I can’t exactly call this entire menu Syrian or Turkish because much like the featured spice, it has elements of both.

See that photo above with the pepper, lemon, garlic and Greek yogurt? That’s our marinade and discipline 1 of 4 we are doing today.

If those ingredients look familiar, there’s a reason.

It is very similar to the marinade we used in our grilled za’tar chicken. The base is plain Greek yogurt, garlic, olive oil and citrus and you can adapt from there. I know I’ve discussed how this marinade basically changes the entire consistency of the chicken it encounters and it delivered again.

This shit is SOOO fucking good.

Grilled chicken with Aleppo Pepper!

3-4 pounds of chicken. Yes, I used just boneless-skinless chicken breast today. Thighs would work too.

(2) 5 1/2 oz cups of plain Greek yogurt.

2 lemons sliced thin

6-8-10 – Just a shitload of garlic cloves peeled and minced

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1 1/2 tablespoons of Aleppo pepper

2 teaspoons of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

First thing we are going to do is make a paste out of the Aleppo pepper. Put the pepper in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of warm water.

Let this sit for about 5 minutes.

Next, everything else but the lemon, garlic and chicken goes into the damn bowl.

Give this a stir.

I gave this a taste at this point, declared “Holy shit!” and immediately decided we need to make a sauce with these same ingredients – we’ll get to that next.

Now add in the garlic and slices of lemon, you can leave the rind on the lemon.

Grab yourself one of the extremely familiar by now 1 gallon zip top bags and add in your chicken. Please note that I sliced each chicken breast in half as I usually do. Once again this is for easier grilling arrangement.

Dump that marinade right on top of that chicken, gently squeeze out as much air from the bag as possible, then seal the bag. Squish the chicken and the marinade around in the hopefully fully sealed bag to get some marinade on every piece of the chicken.

Store this in your refrigerator overnight. See that bowl next to the baggie? I put the bag-o-chicken inside of a containment vessel just in case the bag decides to be an asshole and start leaking.

Next day, remove the chicken from the fridge and let it get to room temperature, then simply fire your grill right the fuck on up and cook that chicken on it.

I’ve found that this is about 5-7 minutes per side.

Oh yeah, while the chicken is on the grill, give it a sprinkle of salt, and some of the Aleppo pepper. Like so.

Cook until done.

I mentioned a sauce up there so let’s knock that fucker out real quick, it’s very similar to the marinade.

Yogurt dipping sauce!

1 cup of Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Some grinds of black pepper

3-4 cloves of minced garlic.

A squeeze of fresh lemon if you didn’t use all of it in the marinade like I did.

Since this is going in the fridge overnight as well, I didn’t do the whole “make a paste with the pepper and water” shit like before. Just dump everything into a bowl.

Give a good stir.

Cover and refrigerate overnight. The sauce will be used as a condiment when serving the cooked chicken. It can also be used to dip a pita or a piece of naan or a goddamn tortilla chip in. It’s fucking tasty.

I figured I would serve the grilled chicken with the sauce and some store bought naan – I’m on a brief baking hiatus – but we would need something more to make this a complete meal.

Research ensued.

Turns out that the Turks sometimes like to serve lentils with their grilled food and that sounded like a goddamn deal to me. I dig the shit out of lentils. The recipe I settled on called for 6 cups of vegetable stock in which to cook the lentils.

Hmm. The wheels started spinning.

Didn’t we still have some leftover, carrot, celery and onion from when we made a mirepoix for the short ribs a week before?

Fucking-A I did.

Vegetable stock!

1 tablespoon of oil – olive oil or basic cooking oil is fine.

1 onion cut into chunks.

2 carrots cut into chunks – no need to peel but give them a wash

4 stalks of celery cut into chunks.

1 whole batch of green onion cut into chunks.

6-7 cloves of minced garlic

Several sprigs of fresh thyme – pretty crucial here

A couple of bay leaves

1/2 tablespoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

2 tablespoons of tomato paste*

1 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper*

*See what I’m doing here? Profiles and shit!

2 quarts (8 cups for the conversionally challenged) of water.

This shit is pretty fuckin’ easy.

Chop up them veggies.

See? You don’t have to chop up too much, we’re just making a stock and will be straining these out at the end.

Take that entire ingredient list and add to a big ass pot.

Cover slightly and cook over a low simmer for an hour? Hour and a half? Sure.

We’re basically going to cook this until we’ve extracted as much flavor out of the vegetables as possible.

When it looks like this?

Let cool completely, strain the veggies out and pour into a storage vessel thusly.

This can be stored in your refrigerator for up to, shit I don’t know, “Several weeks” we’ll call it.

This stock is completely open for any and all additions, it’s healthy as a motherfucker, stupid simple to make and makes a kickass addition to any recipe calling for stock. Shit man, use it instead of water when you make rice! You get the gist. It’s also a great way to use up leftover veggies and ensures a reduction in food waste. We’re really trying here.

All three of the above recipes were made the day before, with the exception of actually grilling the chicken, since I knew I would be manning the grill on the day of cooking. The final recipe is pretty quick and easy so I cooked it right before firing up the grill.

Turkish(?) Red lentil soup!

recipe inspiration from Food52.com

6 cups of vegetable stock  – our recipe right up there produced EXACTLY 6 cups of stock. NICE!

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 medium onion – diced

1 carrot – peeled and diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 teaspoon of cumin

1 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper –Ahh? Ahh?

2 tablespoons of tomato paste – See? See?

8 ounces of red lentils, picked over for debris and rinsed

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons of fresh mint – chopped

First things fucking first. Chop up the onion and carrot pretty goddamn fine.

Any idea why we chop these up so small?

Damn right! Lentils take less than an hour to cook and we want everything to be evenly cooked.

Next sort through the red lentils and give a quick rinse.

Anyone else find these, I don’t know, kinda sexy?

Just me?

OK.

Just look at the vibrant color though.

Whatever, moving on.

Add the oil to a pot – Dutch oven in this case – and saute the onion and carrot for about 7-9 minutes.

Next we will add in the garlic, the lentils, tomato paste and the seasonings- EXCEPT FOR THE MINT! –  and cook for about a minute. Give it a good stir.

I mean, just look at the deep reddish hue, man! Work with me here!

Next add in the homemade stock.

I cooked these for about 45-50 minutes until the lentils were nice and tender.

Know what we’re going to do next? Do ya?

AHA!

Blender time!

We’re going to blend up about half of the lentils for a creamy texture and as a way to slightly thicken the lentils. Again if you don’t have an immersion blender this technically CAN be blended in a regular blender but exercise caution because of the whirling hot-ass soup thing.

Here you go.

The final step?

Add in the chopped mint,

then give it a good stir.

Hey, I was skeptical about this step too but this shit just WORKS here.

Check it out.

Incredibly tasty. Perfect for a Fall/Winter day. Also, see what we did with these last 2 recipes?

Both are completely, utterly VEGAN! No animal products of any kind in the lentils or the stock. Don’t worry I ate about 2 pounds of that chicken to offset this affect.

When the lentils were done, I cooked that marinaded chicken over a charcoal grill, then got a bowl of the lentil soup, a piece of naan, and a couple of scoops of the yogurt sauce we made.

The final verdict?

Boom fucking diggity!

This is some of the best grilled chicken I’ve eaten in my entire life. I’m not saying that as hyperbole but because it’s the damn truth. Something about the Aleppo pepper, the cumin and the tomato paste gave this a quasi-barbecue chicken taste. This is going on “heavy repeat” as they say in the radio business.

Fuck me was this amazing. Rip off a piece of that bread, and put a couple of chicken slices on there with some of that yogurt sauce? DAMN! Sample some of those lentils, familiar, soothing yet just slightly exotic with the pepper and the mint.

If I was a ball player, I just went 4 for 4.

Every single one of these were out of the goddamn park delicious.

I’ve suggested this idea to you on previous posts but let’s say someone invites you to a “cookout” “barbecue” “grill session” or whatever the fuck they want to call it and you know they will have a fire to cook things on. You want to impress some motherfuckers?

Take that bag of marinaded chicken, place it in an ice chest with some ice or blue ice, carry along your salt, and Allepo pepper and when that grill comes available, cook this shit for them right in front of their fucking eyes. Serve them, loosely cross your arms across your chest, and wait for the fucking “hosannas.”

They will be arriving shortly.

Epicness! ACHIEVED!

Please try this one. You’ll be very happy you did.

Four recipes is enough for the day.

I’m out.

See you all next week. Thanks for being there.

PEACE!