Have you ever bitten into a perfectly grilled, saffron and lemon-infused chicken kabob and wondered, “How can I make this at home?” That’s exactly what we’ll be exploring today, as we share the secrets behind the mouthwatering flavors of joojeh kabob. Discover how the perfect marinade with ingredients like saffron, lemon juice, onion, and salt not only adds incredible taste, but also tenderizes the chicken for that melt-in-your-mouth experience. Plus, learn about the etymology of “joojeh,” which means young chicken or chick, and how it’s become a term of endearment for us.
But that’s not all! We also answer a listener’s Ask The Beats question about the Gol Getter cocktail, a Persian-inspired creation that you can enjoy with or without alcohol. Find out the essential ingredients and how to mix them together for a refreshing drink that’s perfect for summer. We even share a variation using Quince Jam instead of Rose Jam! So join us on this culinary adventure, and don’t forget to reach out with your questions or stories – we’d love to hear from you!
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Transcript:
Intro:
This is Modern Persian Food, a culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiast.
We talk about classic Persian flavors, modern recipes, and embracing culture and identity through food.
I’m Bita and I’m also Beata. Welcome to our show.
0:00:24 – Beata
Hi everybody, welcome to episode 140 of the Modern Persian Food podcast. Today, we’re talking about joojeh kabob. We are kicking off our summer content, and what better way than to talk about this delicious, savory, saffron and lemon infused chicken marinated chicken that we grill up on the barbecue And we can talk about some other ways about cooking it, but we want to inspire you to make joojeh kabob in your own home. As always, i’m joined by the lovely Bita joon Hi. Bita joon Hi! I’m here to talk about joojeh kabob. This is one of your favorite kabobs, isn’t it? I love joojeh kabob.
0:01:03 – Bita
It’s so delicious And I feel like chicken gets old, man, like when you’re cooking and maybe you’re cutting down on red meat or for whatever reason, you’re eating and cooking a lot of chicken it can get old. There’s just only so many things you can do with chicken and Persian chicken, joojeh kabob, has some really special, extra delicious flavors, so I’m excited to help y’all learn how to make it at home and to get inspired myself.
0:01:33 – Beata
Yeah, so I think, typically when we think about kabobs, we think of them charred over a flame, over a barbecue, char, grilled. And when I think about joojeh kabob and the smell of it cooking on the grill, it is unlike any other smell. It’s like get me that joojeh kabob right now. It has such a distinct smell that you know, oh, that’s chicken and that’s Persian chicken being cooked on a grill. We have a little grill at home, so we do it. But I also like to take kind of shortcuts and sometimes, if I don’t feel like asking my husband to deal with the grill, I’ll make it in the oven. So let’s talk about it, let’s talk about how to marinate it and then let’s talk about, kind of like, our favorite ways to cook it up.
0:02:14 – Bita
Yeah, because, to be honest, i get it out when I’m at a restaurant And the other factoid is that I’m actually like leaning towards getting closer and closer to eating vegetarian vegan, so I’m getting it less and less. However, if I were to have it, or used to have it, I would order it or get it takeout, and it’s always really special if someone has grilled it up from scratch. Yeah, that’s a good point. So what do you say is in a joojeh kabob recipe?
0:02:43 – Beata
I think the main flavor profiles that you get when you’re talking about joojeh kabob is really the saffron flavor, the lemon juice and, you know, definitely need to make sure that it’s well salted. And also a key ingredient that you may not really realize is onion. So grated onion in the marinade not only tenderizes the chicken, it adds such a deliciousness to it and the juices from the onions really penetrate into the chicken. And those are the distinct flavors of when it comes to joojeh kabob. Now, some people will substitute different things for the salt. I have a cousin who loves to put soy sauce instead of salt in his marinade, and some people will use yogurt, and I think that there’s some other Mediterranean chicken skewers that really lean on having yogurt in the marinade. There’s a kind of a debate about like, does it change the texture of the chicken a little bit when you have the yogurt or not? So those are the main flavor profiles that you see when you eat joojeh kabob.
0:03:50 – Bita
I love it. It’s like citrusy and that special flavor that I think makes Persian food so unique is sort of the sour or tartness that you wouldn’t expect.
0:04:00 – Beata
Right, exactly. So if I wanted to make a marinade, what I would usually start off with is blooming some saffron, and I usually will use like the container that I’m going to kind of store the chicken in the refrigerator. So I’ll bloom some saffron just in that container. I typically use like a glass container that has a lid that I could just like put into the refrigerator, and then I will go ahead and just grate the onions and use all of the juice and all of the onions and add that to the saffron. Then I add my salt, then I’ll add my lemon juice, and sometimes, before I juice the lemon, I like to actually zest the lemon to get some of the zest in there as well, and then I add the salt or the soy sauce, if I’m going to be using it, and I mix it all together, add the raw chicken And for the chicken you can really use kind of any part of the chicken that you want.
If you’re a dark meat type of person, or if you like the white meat, you can kind of kind of pick whatever part. Or if you just want to do the wings, I would recommend that you chop up the chicken into kind of the same size pieces so that you can skewer it or however you want to. One way you end up cooking it, that it cooks evenly, and you mix it with the marinade, you cover it and put it in the fridge for at least a few hours. You can even leave it for a day or two to really get it marinated, and then you’re ready to grill it up.
0:05:17 – Bita
Yeah, and I think that traditionally it is either bone in or boneless. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that the etymology of the word joojeh means young chicken or chick.
0:05:31 – Beata
Yeah, so it’s definitely like kind of like tender chick or hen sometimes Cornish game hen is what kind of like chicken typically is used for, the kind of like smaller pieces.
0:05:44 – Bita
Back in the day. To go on a slight tangent, my husband and I, Bobby, would call each other joojeh. Oh, for sure it was joojeh, and it was everywhere. joojeh, come here, joojeh, give me kiss. joojeh on the greeting cards. So cute, so cute.
0:05:59 – Beata
That’s your tangent of the day Cutie little joojeh. Cutie little joojeh. I love it. So that’s basically what it comes down to. You know, you’ll see, it comes different variations. Sometimes people may add a little bit of garlic, sometimes people can add like lemon pepper or different kinds of pepper to it. But the foundation of the recipe is pretty similar to what I just said. And then for the next step is really how you want to cook it. So if you want to put it on the barbecue, you could just put the pieces of chicken right there, right on the barbecue, straight.
Another way is to skewer it, and Persian skewers actually are really interesting because they’re wide and they’re flat. So you can skewer the chicken on these wide, flat skewers, as we call that. What I like to use a lot of times, if I don’t want to deal with the big metal skewers, is I actually use little wooden skewers. I soak them in water for like 10 to 15 minutes first, and what I do because the wooden skewers are pretty thin is I’ll use two skewers, so I’ll skewer each piece of chicken with the two skewers like about an inch apart from each other. Oh, really, yeah. So then it actually like lets the chicken kind of like hold its shape a little bit better. It’s a little easier to maneuver on the barbecue itself and it actually I think it looks visually really pretty with like the two skewers for each of the little kebabs of the joojeh kebob.
0:07:22 – Bita
Oh, I haven’t seen that. Now, what does the water soaking do?
0:07:24 – Beata
The skewers are wooden and if you put the dry wooden skewer on the grill it’ll like catch flame a little bit and it’ll burn faster. So I prefer to just soak it and then you don’t have that issue. Oh smart, yeah. So then you kind of grill it up and that’s, I think, like the main way to really do it. But I also will do it in the oven, put it like under the broiler or just at a high heat, and that cooks pretty quickly that way.
If you just wanted to have that flavor is you could just cut up the chicken and also just saute it in a frying pan with a little bit of oil. What I do, if I’m going to do it that way, i’ll put the chicken out in one even layer in the bottom of the pan and actually cover the pan for a few minutes And then I flip the chicken and then I don’t cover it for the second half and you can get it gets like a nice little char on it that way if you just want to have a super simple weeknight version of it.
0:08:17 – Bita
Oh cool, I might try that. I have a couple of grill pans and what they are is just basically a pan with some grill type grooves or bumps on the bottom of the pan, and so what happens is, if you turn it high enough and probably cover the pan would help it to cook You’ll get some char marks on it and the simulation of grilling outside, so that works in all the way.
0:08:48 – Beata
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It’s one of those quintessential Persian dishes I love. I love getting it out as well. I usually actually typically when I have kebabs of really any form, that is usually a food that I order out in a prison restaurant. By bringing those flavors at home and having having summer grilling, this is definitely a must have on your summer menu. Delicious.
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0:09:26 – Bita
I have to say there is not a good chicken substitute for any non meat eaters out there yet, but stay tuned on the horizon I know there’s people that masterminds that create these things, that are developing them. Our younger daughter is in college studying nutrition, somewhat following in my footsteps, and she’s been looking at some internships and there are there are some startups and some some folks that are that are creating meat substitutes and so stay tuned, yeah, there might be something good out there that is more closely resemble to what we expect chicken to taste like. Your cousin has a secret recipe besides the soy sauce, what’s in your cousin’s delicious joojeh kebab recipe that you know and love?
0:10:15 – Beata
Yeah, my cousin Farahad. He is a great cook. He’s one who adds lemon pepper as well, so he does lemon pepper and soy sauce in his version and it’s super delicious.
0:10:29 – Bita
If you look closely, at most lemon pepper blends. Lemon pepper has a little bit of turmeric in it. Oh really, oh, i never knew that and sometimes say, hey, I have like a tiny bit of sugar as well. Okay.
0:10:40 – Beata
All right, that makes sense. Does he use yogurt or no yogurt? No, he’s anti yogurt. In joojeh kebab marinade, he says it makes the chicken tough. So you can kind of do your own research on that one. But yeah, at his house there’s definitely no yogurt in the marinade, it’s just served on the side. So, speaking of what to have on the side, let’s talk about what to pair joojeh kebab with What. Would you eat yourjoojeh kebab with rice?
0:11:08 – Bita
Definitely rice Salad, shirazi yogurt. What would you have your joojeh kebab with? If we were grilling? I’d probably make some corn, some Roma tomatoes grilled, yeah.
0:11:20 – Beata
Definitely rice. This is joojeh kebab. You have it with rice. You could also have it with bread or on top of a salad or something, but the traditional way is to have it with rice and to have a charred tomato. So we are actually going to be talking more about tomatoes next week, So stay tuned for that. but definitely a charred tomato to go on the side. and the salad shirazi is a must. And what salad shirazi is? for people who don’t know, it is a salad of cucumber, tomato, onion, lemon juice It’s like a lemony dressing olive oil, salt and pepper, and it is a very refreshing and bright salad that goes perfect with joojeh kebab and actually really any type of kebab and rice dish.
0:12:04 – Bita
Yeah, and I think if I was going to do the grilled tomatoes, I’d also throw on some bell peppers and some onions and just make some veggie skewers, and that would be really good with the joojeh kebab as well.
0:12:16 – Beata
Perfect. Get all your little vegetables in too. That’s perfect, awesome. So I hope that this episode has inspired you, listener, to try making joojeh kebab at home yourself and definitely let us know what you think of the recipes and also the flavors, and if you will be making this recipe again and again all summer long. We would like to take the opportunity now to move on to a segment. It’s actually been a minute, but we have a new Ask the Beats For people who are new to the show. Ask the Beats is a weekly section that we have on our show that we feature a question that a listener or someone from our community has sent us And we feature the question here and ask it. So if you have a question for us, please email us at hello at modernpresentfood.com, or email Bita or myself directly, or even post on Instagram, and we will feature you in an upcoming show.
0:13:10 – Bita
Yeah, there’s even a way to use your voice and leave an audio message through Instagram, and we could feature your voice as part of the show, which makes it fun. One day, we’ll be able to take live calls!
0:13:23 – Beata
That’s on the roster yeah, on the horizon. Hopefully we can get that soon. What’s the ATB? Give it to me. Yeah, the ATB, the Ask, the Beats of this week. It comes to us from our website and the question is what is your recipe for making the Gol Getter cocktail? And, as you may remember, the Gol Getetr cocktail was a cocktail we came up with Bita Joon came up with for our Persian cocktails episode last year that we did around New Year’s, and Gol Getter was a play on words for a great New Year’s drink to go get all your goals.
0:13:59 – Bita
That was back in the day, man, that’s taken me back. I had a little pink hat that said Gol Getetr and I had a video which we’ll maybe share. It’s just a made up play on the word Gol means flower in the Persian language. So you take some Brute Rose and a spoon or two of Rose Jam, a splash of Rose Water and some culinary rose petals as garnish. Let’s throw that in there. If you want to make it virgin or non-alcoholic, just use the bubbly water or seltzer of your choice and you can still get those fun flavors. So that was a great question and if I remember correctly from the comment on our website that came in, she is going to be making this drink as part of a Persian hosted dinner. So I love it. I love the idea.
0:14:52 – Beata
Yeah, we love hearing what you guys are up to, so please drop us a line, let us know what you like and what you’re up to. We love hearing from our listeners. And you know that recipe is super simple and I just wanted to say that I’d make a variation of that, using actually Quince Jam, and I love putting like a little spoonful of Quince Jam, mixing it either with sparkling water or sparkling wine, and sometimes I’ll put like a little piece of the Quince be in the glass as well and it looks really pretty And it’s just a fun alternative to just a standard drink.
0:15:26 – Bita
Yeah, awesome mimosas all around!
0:15:30 – Beata
Yeah, thank you so much Bita Joon, for a great conversation. I am ready for summer and getting into some summer foods We’ll be talking more about that over the next few weeks and some more fun series featuring some people from our community, so stay tuned for that everyone.
0:15:45 – Bita
Until next time. Thank you, bye, bye, bye.
0:15:50 – Beata
You’ve been listening to the Modern Persian Food podcast with Bita and Beata. Thanks for spending time with us. If you’ve enjoyed what you heard today, consider telling a friend or giving us a good rating. You can subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcasting app or find us online at modernpersionfood.com or on Instagram for the recipes and information we talked about today. We’d love to hear your thoughts and see you next time.
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