Big Has’ Badadez kebab recipe
“This is the equivalent of a Cypriot Sunday roast. In Cyprus, most houses have an outdoor wood-fired oven and this dish cooks slowly for hours with burning olive-tree logs gently smouldering,” says Hasan Semay, AKA Big Has.
“I don’t have one (I wish I did); if you do, defo do this in there; if not, you’ll have to stick to good old-fashioned indoor oven-cooking like me.
“Now, Cypriots don’t really care about cooking chickens beautifully. They’d just put this all in a tray and stick it in the oven for hours, but as no one wants to eat sawdust chicken, I’ve stripped the recipe back and tried to get it to a point where whoever gets the breast can actually enjoy it.”
Badadez kebab
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
1 chicken, weighing 1.8kg
A bunch of thyme
800g round shallots, peeled
1.5kg Cyprus potatoes, peeled and quartered lengthways
500g sweet pointed peppers
320g long green Turkish peppers
A good glug of vegetable oil
3–4tbsp tomato puree
Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
To serve:
Good-quality olive oil
Chopped flat-leaf parsley
Zest of 1 lemon
Rice
Turkish yogurt
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
2. Start by breaking down your chicken. Cut off the legs, then split the thighs and the legs. Take off the wings with a little breast. Cut out the backbone and cut the breasts into three equal pieces on the bone. Keep the breast on the bone – that’s our little safety blanket to stop our chicken drying out, plus the bone adds to the flavour.
3. Stick your chicken in a bowl, give it a good glug of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and a bunch of thyme. Don’t really worry about marinating, just dress it.
4. Heat a heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat with a good glug of olive oil and seal your chicken. Make sure you brown your chicken on all sides to build flavour but don’t burn the thyme. Once the chicken is sealed, stick it on a plate and set aside.
5. Now, it’s pretty much just stick everything in a roasting tray. Add the shallots and potatoes first, then slice the pointed sweet peppers into three, remove the seeds and add to the mix. The green Turkish peppers can just go in whole. Add the vegetable oil and season everything heavily with salt and pepper.
6. Stir the tomato puree into 850ml boiling water, then add to the mix. Add the chicken we sealed off earlier, leaving the breast behind for later. Place the tray in the oven and cook for two hours. We want the potatoes to suck up all the flavour.
7. After two hours, add the breast meat over the top. Don’t mix it through as you want to avoid breaking up the potatoes. Turn the oven up to 210°C fan/230°C/450°F/gas mark 8 and cook for 15 minutes. The chicken breast will cook through, and your potatoes will crisp around the edges.
Big Has HOME: Recipes From North London To North Cyprus by Hasan Semay is published by Pavilion Books, priced £20. Photography by Haarala Hamilton. Available now.