Catch up day--Posting old recipes

It's ugly as hell out today, Eva is at school and Anita is asleep. So, as promised, here are a couple of recipes from earlier posts that I never got around to putting up. I love middle eastern food. Indian is my favorite, but just about anything from Morocco to India makes me very happy. I have a couple African/Middle East/Indian cookbooks I pull from. Here are a couple recipes straight out of one my sister gave me a few years back by Josephine Bacon and Jenni Fleetwood.

Chicken with Tomatoes and Honey
This recipe is not only really damn good, but it is also pretty simple and only takes ~1 hr total. You basically throw everything together in a pot and just let it go.
You need:
Sunflower oil (or just regular olive oil if you don't have any)
an equal amount of butter
chicken
1 onion, grated
garlic
ground cinnamon
ground ginger
~3 lbs of tomatoes, skinned, seeded, and chopped
2 tbsp honey
2 oz/ 1/3 cup blanched almonds
sesame seeds
s/p

Heat the oil and butter in a large pot. Add the chicken and cook over medium heat til browned, ~3-5 min. Add the onion, garlic, cinnamon, ginger, tomatoes, and seasoning. Heat gently til the tomatoes begin to bubble.
Lower the heat, cover, and simmer gently for ~1 hr, stirring occasionally til the chicken is cooked.
Transfer the chicken to a plate and increase the heat to reduce the sauce to a thick puree, stirring frequently. Stir in the honey and cook for about 1 minute.
Return the chicken to the pan and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Dry-fry the almonds and sesame seeds in a pan and sprinkle over the chicken.

M'hanncha (or, 'The Snake')
If you've been reading the blog, you've seen me mention the snake. This is a moroccan dessert that is my new favorite. It can seem a little daunting since it requires filo pastry, but it is actual really easy to make. The danger with this one is that you might go into a sugar coma since there is a lot of sugar in it and it is really hard to stop eating it. I have several roommates and roommates' girlfriends who can attest to that.
You need:
115g/ 2/3 cup blanched almonds
115g/ 1/2 cup butter, softened plus a little more for cooking almonds
300g/ 2 2/3 cups ground almonds
50g/ 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
115g/ 2/3 caster sugar (this is superfine sugar. I usually just use a 1/2 and 1/2 combo of table sugar and powdered sugar and, as stated, you could probably get by with reducing the amount of sugar just a little bit. If you're going by weight, it won't matter but if you're using volume measurements, the larger grains will give you less sugar in the end. Just don't blame us if you get diabetes.)
2+ tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp orange flower water (so many of these african/middle east recipes call for this stuff. I've never been able to find it. Just throw in a little water. I added a little orange zest to it once.)
Filo pastry and melted butter for brushing
1 egg yolk
powdered sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Fry blanched almonds in a little butter until golden brown and then pound them in a mortar and pestle til they resemble coarse bread crumbs. Place all the nuts in a bowl and add the sugars, softened butter, cinnamon, and orange flower water. Using your hands, form the mixture into a paste. Cover and chill for ~30 min.
Heat the oven to 350F. Grease a large baking pan.
Open out the sheets of filo pastry. Keep them in a pile so they do not dry out. Brush the top one with butter.
Take lumps of the almond paste and place them along the edge of the bottom of the filo sheet. Roll up the filo to a thumb's thickness. Squeeze the ends of the dough roll like an accordion to relax the dough before coiling it in the center of the pan. Continue brushing the sheets with butter, rolling the paste, and placing the rolls end to end to form a large, tight coil. You know, like a snake.
Mix the egg yolk with a little water and brush this over the pastry. This gives it a nice dark brown look once cooked. Purely aesthetic. Not necessary for flavor. Bake the pastry for 30-35 minutes until crips and lightly browned.
Dust the top with powdered sugar and lines of cinnamon.
Wait for it to cool. You WILL burn yourself. Enjoy.