Mediterranean food junkie seeks recipe!

[Vektor]

I am looking for a recipe for Chicken Cilicia. I have had little success searching the web. This fabulous dish is made with chicken, almonds, raisins, chickpeas, cinnamon, and other spices, and is rolled in fillo. While I know most of the ingredients, I really don't know how to make it.

What I do know how to do is EAT it. I have had the pleasure of enjoying this dish at a few restaurants in the San Francisco area, and I'd like to learn to make it myself. BECAUSE I AM AN ADDICT.

[bearfan454]

1. I looked all over for that recipe

I didn't have any luck either. Sorry.

[livetohike]

2. Call your favorite restaurant and see if the chef

will share the recipe with you. If not, why not experiment? You'll probably hit on the right combination. :-)

[bearfan454]

3. You can buy frozen filo dough at the grocery store.

Give it a try like livetohike says. It'll be fun.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Since you found this in a restaurant, and since

there is no recipe for it on the internet (I looked, too) my sense is it is some house specialty. Not that that's a bad thing .... but it is not a cataloged recipe or a recipe name in common use. This happens all the time.

My sister-in-law co-authored a cookbook with an aromatherapy slant to it. I contributed a few recipes. One was called "Gamberini (Sparkly)" (Shrimp Sparkly). It is a nice recipe, but surely not known beyond my kitchen and that cookbook!

I am able to replicate reasonably well almost any recipe after having eaten it (except for Asian recipes because I am sorely lacking in an understanding of the eastern cuisines). You probably won't hit it the first few times, but keep experimenting. You'll get it or so close you won't notice there's a difference.

Your post lists a bunch of stuff you already know to be in it, so you're almost there already!

[iverglas]

5. how about a reasonable facsimile?

I suspect that the possibility of this being a house specialty is correct, but what it might be is a simplified version of chicken pastilla (except for the chickpeas). I made it once (out of a Mediterranean cookbook I have) and it was a pain in the ass, so I can understand somebody simplifying it.

Here's the first recipe that google presented:
http://www.recipesource.com/ethnic/americas/brazil/00/rec0009.html
Yeah. Step one: grind spices. I don't think so.

Here's another:
http://www.kosherdelight.com/Chicken4.htm
You'll find that it is made with pigeons in its original version, but I went with the chicken.

Or heck. Just ask google for chicken pastilla recipe and browse until you find one that looks closest to what you had, and maybe you could add chickpeas and roll it in the phyllo instead of making all those layers. ;)


edit -- I forgot that "pastilla" is presumably a European rendering; the original is "bisteeya", so you can search by that instead too.

[Vektor]

6. You are right!

The actual name is Chicken Pastilla - and I have had tremendous success with finding many recipes now. Thank you!

Oh, and yeah- NO THANKS on the pigeons. :-)

[iverglas]

7. ta da

Ask me anything. ;)

Shoot -- look what I just found. (I was looking for something I'd seen that I thought was called "chicken cecilia", which involved baking chicken with mayonnaise on it, to make fun of ... didn't find it right off, tried your spelling again ...)

https://ontherun.cc/show_menu.asp?RestaurantZone=0&RestaurantID=2496

"61. Chicken Cilicia
Chicken Chucnks W/ Almonds, Chick Peas, Rausuns, Cunnamon And Spices."

Not surprisingly (love those rausuns), it was misspelled "chicken cicilia" elsewhere on the menu, ergo showed up on my search.

And now I find all sorts. It seems to be a specialty of Café La Méditerranée in San Francisco:
http://cave.csuhayward.edu/CAVE/REAL/Real96/Solos/lamediterranee.html



heh heh:
http://www.recipelink.com/cgi/msgbrd/msg_script.pl?getmsg=1&board=14&thread=15063

There is a meditereanian restaurant in berkeley & sf california that makes a dish called chicken cilicia. it includes chicken, spices, garbanzo beans, almonds & raisins and is wrapped in a filo dough & dusted with powdered sugar. I am hoping for a copycat recipe of this deliciious dish. Thanks!

re: cilicia may be same as pastilla or silicia

'Zat you?? The answer wasn't me, but great minds and all that.

Anyhow, rave reviews for it, but no recipes. So - add the garbanzos, butter the phyllo up good, and roll it all up and bake it, I guess! Your description had sounded like an excellent thing to eat, so having done the searching around I may just drag that package of phyllo out of the freezer and try it myself.

[Vektor]

9. That's it!

This is the very restaurant that I was referring to!!!! Except I last dined at the Berkeley one on College avenue.....

OMG.

Man that stuff is good.

[BuddhaGirl]

12. Are you talking about La Mediterranean????

I love that place - and I LOVE their chicken cilicia!!

I go there as often as I can.

[iverglas]

8. and more

A little more searching, and I saw them described as "phyllo rolls". So I asked google for chicken almonds "phyllo rolls" recipe.

A couple of the returns:
http://www.recipezaar.com/94396
and
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/108864

MOROCCAN-STYLE CHICKEN PHYLLO ROLLS
These rolls are based loosely on b'stilla — a phyllo-crusted "pie" of shredded chicken that's been simmered with Moroccan spices and then mixed with egg and nuts. The egg lends the filling an almost custardlike richness.

i.e. instructions for making the rolled variation. Still no chick peas though. And damn I'm getting hungry.

[Vektor]

10. I think I am going to go with this one:

http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/15350/
I'll add the raisins and chickpeas myself. This one is very close to what I had. I will also use a sprinkle of powdered sugar, and just get boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead.

OH MY GOD.

It may become a reality. Moroccan Chicken Pastilla in my own home.

I hope I don't screw it up too badly.

[iverglas]

11. I want some

Seems only fair!

Me, I'm going home for homemade spaghetti sauce (freezer's kept full of that, and chili) and whole-wheat spaghettini. The co-vivant whines about the whole-wheat aspect of it, but I say tough.

Aren't skinless boneless chicken breasts just the cat's pyjamas? The freezer gets filled up with them every time they go on sale, too.

I may hold onto that one myself. The pastilla recipe in my cookbook was a fair bit too authentic for me; the effort to results ratio was too high.

Ah -- what yours doesn't specify (if you're doing the layered method rather than rolling) is: use a spring-form pan. That way you get the presentation effect, and it doesn't all moosh when you cut into it.