Chili Garlic Sesame Dip

Chili Garlic Sesame Dip 

The truth is I love having vegetables. Yes that is right I love my bacon, cake and steamed or raw vegetables. Well sometimes the salt and pepper isn't enough and so you need an extra boost with a dip but most dips are unhealthy and high in calories . Well a few years ago I had suddenly become interested in Middle Eastern cuisine and finding the ease of availability of the ingredients used in many of their dishes I became a fan of both tahini and Toum and that is how I came to make this dip of mine which is heavily borrowed from those two dips. This takes very little time to make and is a wonderful accompaniment to fresh vegetables or crisps or even nachos.

Makes 4 servings

1 head garlic
4 to 5 dried red chilies
1.5 tbsp red wine vinegar (you can use any other vinegar)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt as per taste
1.5 tsp thyme
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Soak the peeled garlic and red chili in the vinegar and oil for 1 hour. This helps reduce the heat of the chili and then just add everything and blend away and you have a healthy dip ready for you. Can be stored in the refrigerator for a week.

Sesame Chili Grilled Chicken

Sesame Chili Grilled Chicken 

The truth is I get these strange cravings at times. I mean I literally can taste the imagined taste that I crave in my mind and then until I satisfy my taste bud's cravings I feel very uncomfortable. So last evening, I had this particular craving for something spicy. Well, coming from the land of spices one might be confused when I further say that for me its more so a craving for hot food and not just any hot food but succulent juicy chicken with a dominant flavour of red chili.

So at 8 in the evening I went to marinate some chicken and what followed amused me. I was going to make my favourite marination where I basically throw in Garlic, apple cider vinegar, whole red chilies and olive oil when the jar of sesame seeds caught my attention. You see I have this incredible love for sesame and what I particularly fondly remember is my favourite blogger from Lebanon writing about a marination for a kebab where out of many ingredients sesame seeds and cumin were my favourite and the ones readily available to me. So ultimately this is what happened , I created this dish which can be part of no cuisine yet has its inspiration from the Middle East but writing down the recipe is for the lovely people I interact with on Chef at Large. You see when I posted the pictures for my chicken I seriously did not expect that some love members would want the recipe for my chicken where I threw in things would which isn't part of any cuisine. Well these indeed are the small yet delightful joys of life.

What you need for the recipe

200gm chicken with bones - I prefer the legs and wings

For the marination

4 large cloves of garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 tbsp sesame seeds
4 whole red chilies (The spiciest variety you can find)
I used my homemade hot sauce but in case you don't have homemade hot sauce increase the number of whole red chilies to 8
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt as per taste

Simply blend everything from the marination to a smooth paste and marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours or overnight and grill it. I use a Convection Oven from Samsung in India and I grilled it in the grill mode for 20 minutes on one side and 11 minutes on the other. My chicken was soft succulent, juicy and melt in the mouth .

P.S. When blending everything a few sesame seeds might refuse to become part of the marination , don't worry about it simply marinate the chicken with everything