Middle Eastern Chicken with Chickpea, Herb & Feta Salad Recipe

In the November 2010 issue of delicious magazine I found this recipe and finally I cooked it! I was not looking forward to typing up the whole recipe, so I was very excited to see another blogger had done the hard work for me http://adeliciousyear.blogspot.com. 

I used 2 large chicken breasts and lemon pepper instead of sumac but other than that, I followed the recipe pretty much as it appeared in the magazine.

Middle Eastern Chicken with Chickpea, Herb & Feta Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp lemon pepper (I couldn't find sumac as the recipe suggested)
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil 
• 1 lemon, sliced, plus juice of 1 lemon
• 4 x 200g chicken breast fillets 
• 40 g unsalted butter
• 1 round Lebanese bread, cut into wedges
• 400g can chickpeas, rinsed & drained
• 2 cups flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped 
• 1 red onion, sliced 
• 75g  Persian feta, drained

Method: 

• Combine sumac, 1 tbsp oil, lemon slices & lemon juice (reserve 1 tbsp  of juice for dressing). Add chicken and turn to coat. Marinate for 20 minutes. 
• Pre-heat oven to 180 C. 
• Heat 1 1/2 tbsp oil in large oven proof fry pan over medium heat. 
• Cook chicken for 3 minutes each side and then place in the oven for 8 minutes or until cooked.
• Loosely cover with foil and let chicken rest for at least 2 minutes. 
• Fry bread (I did this in the oven) OR Melt butter and 2 tsp oil in another fry pan over medium heat. Season bread and cook for 4 - 5 minutes turning regularly until crisp. Remove and keep warm. 
• Add chickpeas to pan and warm through (I also browned the lemon at this stage).
• Slice chicken and toss with lemon, chickpeas, bread, parsley, onion, feta and drizzle with reserved marinade. 

I served it with lettuce, tomato and cucumber on the side.

It was a really nice dinner and there was enough left over for lunch. Woohoo!