Whole-poached chicken brings layers of flavor to this fragrant, spiced lentil stew. Topped with fried onions and tomatoes, it’s a filling and deeply flavorful meal.
Poaching a chicken delivers not only meat, but a flavorful broth for cooking the lentils in.
Toasting the spices in oil deepens and releases their flavor more effectively.
The optional step of finely mincing the poached chicken skin and cooking it into the lentils makes a more delicious, satisfying final stew.
Very loosely inspired by a Middle Eastern dish called haleem that comes in many forms but sometimes features meat stewed with spiced lentils and topped with fried onions, this recipe features stewed lentils with a fragrant mix of spices, including coriander seed, cumin, and turmeric. Garlic and ginger provide an aromatic base of flavor.

We start by poaching a whole chicken: the skin is (optionally) minced very finely and added to the lentils as they stew, melding into the mix while adding richness to the dish; the poaching broth is used to cook the lentils themselves, and the meat is shredded and folded into the lentils before serving.

A very hot oven rapidly creates the steam that puffs up the pita.
Avoiding tears on the surface of each dough disk prevents the pitas from bursting and venting the steam in the oven.
Flipping the pita over when placing it on the stone yields an even thickness of the pita walls.
Charring the pitas in a skillet after baking replicates the intense heat of a traditional oven.

Ingredients

1 cup water (8 ounces; 240ml), 105–110°F (41–43°C)
1 tablespoon (15ml) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for oiling the bowl
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (2 1/2 ounces; 70g)
2 cups all-purpose flour (10 ounces; 280g), plus more for dusting

Place baked pitas onto towel-lined plate and wrap with the overhanging towel. Repeat with any remaining pitas.

For an extra-charred finish, heat a cast iron skillet on the stovetop over high heat until smoking. Working with one pita at a time, briefly heat each side until charred in a few spots, about 30 seconds. Return pita to towel and cover. Repeat with remaining pitas and serve immediately.

Meanwhile, place a baking steel or 12-inch cast iron skillet on the top oven rack and preheat oven to 500°F (260°C). Line a plate with a large, clean kitchen towel and set aside.

Punch down the dough, transfer to a lightly floured work surface, and cut into 6 even pieces. Form each dough piece into an even ball. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 10 minutes.

Roll each piece of dough into about a 7-inch circle, no more than 1/4 inch thick, taking care not to tear dough and keeping the thickness even all around. Place dough disks on a lightly floured surface, cover with a damp towel, and let proof until slightly puffy, about 30 minutes.

Working with as many pitas as will fit on the steel at once, pick up each pita and place on the steel top side down. (If using a cast iron skillet, bake one pita at a time.) Immediately close the oven door and bake until pitas have puffed and are slightly golden around the edges, about 3 minutes. Be careful not to over-bake.

When kneading the dough, it should be slightly tacky, not dry. This recipe may be doubled. Pitas can be baked ahead of time and frozen, with parchment layered between them, then wrapped in foil and plastic wrap. Defrost, then toast in skillet as per recipe.

Ingredients
One 3 1/2-pound (1.6kg) chicken
1 tablespoon (10g) kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
1 cup (240ml) extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
One 1-inch knob fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Large pinch red pepper flakes
1 1/2 pounds (680g) green, French green (Le Puy), or yellow lentils
1 bay leaf
2 large (10-ounce; 280g) yellow onions, sliced 1/2-inch-thick
1 pound (450g) plum tomatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill or cilantro

When lentils are tender and beginning to break down, add shredded chicken and continue to cook, stirring often to prevent sticking and adding poaching liquid or water little by little as needed to keep lentils from becoming overly thick and sludgy, until some of the lentils have begun to break down and thicken the stew, about 15 minutes longer. Discard bay leaf. Season with salt and keep warm.

Meanwhile, in a large 12-inch stainless steel or cast iron skillet, heat remaining 1/2 cup (120ml) oil over high heat until very lightly smoking. Add onions, season with salt, and cook, stirring often, until deeply browned in spots and beginning to soften, about 15 minutes; lower heat as needed to prevent burning. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring frequently, until tomatoes begin to break down, about 7 minutes; reduce heat even more as needed to prevent burning. Remove from heat, stir in dill or cilantro, and season with salt to taste.

Ladle lentils into individual serving bowls and top with onion-tomato mixture. Drizzle lightly with olive oil, and serve.

While our preferred method for poaching chicken normally calls for an even lower 155°F water temperature for the juiciest and most tender meat, we speed things up here a bit more by cooking it at a sub-simmer (closer to 180°F). The higher heat poaching is fine in this case since the chicken is folded into the stewy lentils which keeps the meat from drying out.

You can also make this recipe vegetarian by cooking the lentils with water and omitting the chicken.

As the lentils finish cooking, we fry sliced onions in plenty of olive oil over high heat—the goal is to get a fried-onion flavor combined with a melting texture—and then cook them down with plum tomatoes for a bright topping that is finished with a handful of fresh herbs—dill or cilantro both work well.

Directions
In a large pot or Dutch oven, combine chicken with enough water to cover. Add 1 tablespoon (10g) salt and bring to just under a simmer (roughly 180°F/80°C on an instant-read thermometer). Cook, maintaining a sub-simmer as best you can, until chicken registers 160°F (70°C) deep in the thigh, about 45 minutes.

Carefully lift chicken from poaching liquid, allowing it to drain back into pat, then transfer to a work surface and allow to cool. Reserve poaching liquid. Clean the pot or Dutch oven.

In the same pot or Dutch oven, combine 1/2 cup (120ml) oil with garlic and ginger and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until garlic and ginger begin to gently sizzle and are just beginning to turn lightly golden, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and add coriander, cumin, turmeric, paprika, black pepper, and pepper flakes and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until spices are lightly toasted and fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Paterson is full of markets to stock up on Middle Eastern provisions, but AK Market’s selection is especially impressive. There’s a full compliment of yogurts and cheeses, including hard-to-find nabulsi, a salty semi-soft cheese flavored with nigella seeds, and Istanbuli, a cream-cheese like spread flavored with grassy green chili. Among the dry goods you’ll find excellent hazelnuts, especially fresh and aromatic, alongside all manner of other nuts, legumes, grains, and spices available in bulk at low prices.

AK also has a butcher counter where you’ll find homemade sujuk, a pepperoni-like beef or lamb sausage perked up with chili and garlic. While imported sujuk is relatively common in Middle Eastern markets, AK’s is better—less fatty and harsh-tasting with a snappy casing and fresh meaty flavor. Slice it up and fry it to serve with eggs, or better yet, use it in place of pepperoni on your next pizza. You’ll get great grease cups. While lentils are cooking, remove skin from the poached chicken; if desired, finely mince the chicken skin and add it to the lentils (it will meld into the lentils during cooking and enrich the stew, but you can omit if desired). Pull meat from chicken bones and shred; discard bones.

As a die-hard New Yorker I hate to admit it, but sometimes you gotta go to Jersey.

What does the Garden State have that the Big Apple lacks? For starters, a wealth of space and comparatively affordable housing, two attributes that have helped cities like Edison, Fort Lee, and Newark become home to some of the tri-state area’s largest ethnic communities. And where large populations of immigrants go, good food follows—in some cases better than its equivalent offerings in New York.

Take Paterson, a silk factory city that fell into post-industrial decline but is now enjoying a second life thanks to its new middle class. The new blood is eclectic—Paterson is home to Hispanic, Arab, Filipino, Asian, and Turkish populations—and as a result, its food scene is impressively diverse. From Manhattan, getting there takes all of half an hour by car, or an hour on NJ Transit.

Stir in lentils, then add enough of the reserved poaching broth to just cover lentils. Add bay leaf. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a simmer, then adjust heat to maintain simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally and adding more poaching liquid to keep lentils just covered throughout, until lentils are very tender and just beginning to break down, about 1 hour; use additional water as needed if you run out of poaching liquid before the lentils have finished cooking.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine water, oil, sugar, yeast, salt, and whole wheat flour with a wooden spoon until combined and smooth. Stir in all-purpose flour until the mixture comes together into a shaggy mass.

Using clean hands, knead the dough in the bowl for 10 minutes or until it becomes smooth and very elastic, adding only very small amounts of extra flour if dough is extremely sticky (see note). Alternatively, knead dough at low speed in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment until dough is very elastic and smooth, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, place a baking steel or 12-inch cast iron skillet on the top oven rack and preheat oven to 500°F (260°C). Line a plate with a large, clean kitchen towel and set aside.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and form into a smooth ball. Lightly oil a clean mixing bowl and place dough inside, then rub oiled hands over the top of the dough. Cover bowl with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

The best time to hit Toros is at lunch, when they offer a three-course lunch special of a soup or salad, your choice of mezze, and a grilled main. Coordinate with your table and you can hack together a shareable feast, all for just $12 a person. Toros does a mean lentil soup, excellent eggplant dishes, and well-seasoned lamb kebabs.

My favorite meat is lamb. My favorite vegetable is eggplant; favorite fruit, pomegranate. Form of carbohydrate? Fresh flatbreads. My favorite food group is dairy; favorite form of dairy: yogurts and fresh cheeses.

Favorite way to eat seafood, as simply prepared as possible. And favorite mode of eating? Lots and lots of little bites of things.

All this, to say: I was destined to love eating in Turkey, where I got my fill of all of the above, and often in small, snackable portions. Here are my 16 favorite foods in Istanbul. Whole wheat flour adds a nutty flavor to the pita bread. Rolling the pitas thin aids in the formation of a pocket.

Begin at Taskin Bakery, which supplies bread both to local restaurants and many of New York’s Middle Eastern markets. Turkish cuisine has a bread culture just as rich as the French, and Taskin’s wide selection does it proud. On the shelves you’ll find flaky croissant-like pastries, syrupy phyllo sweets, briny olive breads, and best of all, simit, crackly-chewy doughnut-shaped breads blitzed with sesame seeds. Fresh from the oven, Taskin’s simit are just as good as what you’ll find in Istanbul, where they’re relished for breakfast much like bagels are in New York. Taskin also has a flattop devoted to gozleme, a tissue-thin flatbread stuffed with fillings like cheese, greens, or meat, then folded over on itself to form a neat, floppy pocket. Go for one filled with spinach and cheese and you’ll be rewarded with greaseless, feather-light bread, barely wilted fresh greens, and lightly salty cheese. You’ll wonder why it’s not on every New York street corner.

It was the promise of great Turkish cooking that that sent SE designer Tracie and me on a field trip to Paterson. While New York has some great Turkish food if you know where to look, most of it leaves some room for improvement. Could Jersey do us one better?

South Paterson’s Turkish sector is far more condensed than New York’s, with a tight cluster of restaurants, kebab houses, bakeries, and groceries. Short diversions will take you to late-night diners, WPA-era outdoor markets, and Hispanic stores selling treasures like dirt-cheap key limes and Peruvian pepper paste.

In short: come for an afternoon and you’ll find more food than you can handle. Looking for an introduction to the city’s Turkish scene? Here’s an afternoon itinerary to get you started.

Just down the street from Taskin you’ll find Toros, a mini-chain of three north Jersey Turkish restaurants. This location, which identifies as the Clifton branch (not to be confused with the Paterson branch nearby) is a dark, velvet-drawn room that recalls some Russian oligarch’s country home. Befitting of the grand setting is a menu that covers the full range of salads, mezze, and grilled Turkish meat.

Eggplant is known for being difficult to prepare, but it’s easy to roast! No salting necessary. The oven takes care of everything.

Continue whisking until the mixture becomes thick and elastic-like. at this point, remove from the heat and continue whisking to ensure it remains smooth – adding a dash more almond milk if it becomes too thick. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and place in the oven to cook for 35-40 minutes until bubbling and golden on top.
once ready to assemble the lasagne; spoon one third of the pesto mixture onto the bottom of a baking dish. top with one quarter of the white sauce and cover with one layer of lasagne sheets. repeat this process twice more, with pesto sauce, white sauce, lasagne sheets, until you have finished all of the pesto and you are left with lasagne sheets on top. top with the last of the white sauce.
Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and place in the oven to cook for 35-40 minutes until bubbling and golden on top.