Iraqi Yellow Spice Rubbed Chicken

Photo by Todd Coleman for Saveur

What do you get when you combine 17 spices, a kosher chicken and a Big Green Egg? Djaj Bil-Bahar Il-Asfar (Iraqi Yellow Spice Rub Chicken). This fun recipe from Saveur magazine produced a dish that can be described with two words you rarely hear in connection with chicken: intensely flavorable.

I followed the recipe exactly, right down to the rose hips, which I had to look for at the co-op, and the sumac, which I've had on my shelf for some time. You toast and grind some of the seeds -- cumin, coriander, cardamom, allspice, among others -- and mix with other powdered spices, such as curry, cinnamon, sumac, ginger -- to produce a rich rub for the chicken overnight. The kosher chickens from Wholefoods are young and small, so the two halves were right about at the 3 pounds called for in the recipe. The Egg seemed just the right way to go for the 45-minute grilling time. I served it with basmati rice rather than the flatbread suggested, and we had a wonderful Gruner Veltliner from Austria that paired perfectly with the spicy chicken.

The fragrant dish reeked of the exotic Orient. It was truly yellow early in the grilling time, turning a rich, charred rust by the end (mine looked exactly like the Saveur photo, shame I didn't take a photo for comparison). The chile gave it just a little kick and there was a hint of sweetness, perhaps from the cinnamon.

I bought a copy of Saveur -- their grilling issue -- after Kathleen Flinn mentioned during my food writing workshop last month that many of its articles were culinary travel. I was very happy with this recipe and the other articles and will certainly subscribe. Andrea already gets Food and Wine and Bon Appetit, so we will be well furnished with magazine recipes.