Tamarind and Date Glazed Roasted Chicken, simplified

with dried sweet orange slices

Tamarind and Date Glazed Roasted Chicken with Dried orange slices

This is a simplified version of the Tamarind and Date Glazed Roasted Chicken that I often make for Rosh Hashanah. For that dish, cut up chicken parts are roasted on a bed of vegetables. Here, I’m using the same seasonings to dress the whole bird, which is then slid into the oven until perfectly cooked.

This sweet and tangy glaze turns a roasted chicken into something special, and each of the ingredients gives its own unique gift to the bird.

Turmeric gives the dish a lovely golden color. If your market sell fresh turmeric tubers, go for it. You can keep the extra in the freezer. If the fresh is unavailable, ground turmeric will be fine. This spice is not only good, it’s good for you—it’s a super anti-inflamatory.

Silan, date honey, is one of the symbolic foods for Rosh Hashanah, and it’s also delicious. I mean, like, eat-it-with-a-spoon delicious. Some say that when the Torah mentions honey, this, and not honey from bees, is what its talking about.

Tamarind is originally from Madagascar, and it’s used quite a lot in Indian cooking. It’s also a must-have for Sephardic cuisine. Its pleasant tartness prevents the sweetness of the silan from becoming cloying. You can also buy whole tamarind pods, scrape the gooey flesh off the big black seeds, and cook it down with water to make a paste. I’ve done it. But buying the paste is a lot easier…and faster…If you don’t have an Indian or Syrian grocery (where it’s called oot), you can find it online.

I love fresh garlic, but a sprinkle of granulated or powdered garlic can come in handy in applications where fresh garlic is likely to burn—like on chicken skin. Just make sure your garlic powder is fresh—it gets nasty when it’s old.

Fresh rosemary adds a woodsy flavor to the dish.

The glaze may seem like a big deal because of the length of the ingredients list, but all you do is mix it all together in a pot and simmer it down until thickened.

You can find the dried orange slices at Trader Joe’s, or perhaps your favorite fancy market, or online.

Tamarind and Date Glazed whole Roasted chicken with dried sweet orange slices

Ingredients:

For the Chicken:

  • 1 whole chickens, rinsed inside and out and dried

  • 1 fresh lemon, cut in quarters

  • 1 medium onion, peeled and cut into chunks

  • 4 cloves garlic, smashed a bit with the side of your chef’s knife

  • Olive oil

  • Kosher salt

  • Pepper

  • Garlic powder

  • 2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

  • Ground turmeric

  • 1/2 cup chicken stock, more as needed

  • A package of dried sweet orange slices

For the Glaze:

  • ½ cup date syrup (available at middle eastern stores and online)

  • 2 tablespoons tamarind paste

  • 1 cup orange juice

  • 1 teaspoon corn starch

  • 4 cloves fresh garlic, chopped

  • 2 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped, plus a few nice sprigs

  • 2 tablespoon good, fruity olive oil

  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

  • ½ teaspoon ground allspice

  • ½ teaspoon cardamom

  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

To make the glaze, whisk all ingredients together in a small saucepan. Simmer until thickened.

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 350°. A hotter oven can cause the sugars in the glaze to burn. Roasting at a moderate temperature for a longer time will help all the fat to render out, resulting in crispy, perfect skin and tender, moist meat.

  • Rub the chicken, inside and out, with a light coating of olive oil.

  • Sprinkle the cavity of the bird with salt and pepper. (Use less, or no, salt, if you are using kosher chickens). I’m not giving you exact measurements here. Just a little sprinkle of each will do. Then sprinkle the outside of the bird, top and bottom, with salt, pepper, turmeric, and garlic powder. Sprinkle on some chopped rosemary.

  • Cover a roasting pan with aluminum foil for easy clean-up. Pour the stock into the pan. Place a lightly oiled rack on the pan so that air can circulate over and under the bird while it roasts. You don’t want the liquid to touch the skin.

  • Cut a few of the orange slices in quarters. Fill the cavity with the cut up onion, lemon, smashed garlic, a few whole sprigs of rosemary, and the orange quarters. Try to equally distribute the aromatics. Tie the legs of the chicken together at the ankles and tuck in the wing tips.

  • Place the chicken on the rack, breast side down. Roast it for 25 minutes, then brush the back side generously with the glaze. Roast it for 5 minutes more, then turn it over, breast side up. If the bottom of the pan is getting dry, pour in a little more stock.

  • Generously slather on the glaze and roast the chicken for another 30 minutes, basting with more glaze every now and again.

  • Press orange slices onto the top of the chicken, covering the breast, and baste again with the glaze. Continue to roast until a meat thermometer inserted half way into the thick part of the thigh/leg registers 165°. Again, make sure the pan doesn’t dry out.

  • Allow the chicken to rest for 10 minutes before carving. Remove the aromatics from the cavity.

  • While it rests, combine all the drippings from the pan with any leftover glaze, in a food processor. You can squeeze in the juice from the roasted lemon as well, just watch out for the pits. Process until smooth and spoon it over the carved meat.