Chicken Apricot Pie a la Medcaf

 There's a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin called Mediterranean Cafe. They have a combination of a small fixed menu (falafel, shawarma) and daily specials. My absolute favorite daily special was their Chicken Apricot Pie: a delicious casserole-square of creamy bechamel, sweet-tart apricot something, chicken and bulgur, served with yellow rice and a salad. The best part of the cafe is that everything is hot and pre-made, so you often would get your food before you found your table. 

I've wanted to re-create this dish for years, but I've been going basically off of decades-old memories and vibes. I've had a Word doc (pre-Google docs ubiquity) going with multiple versions of it. The biggest breakthrough I had was stalking their Yelp page to find pictures of the dish, which helped me realize that it doesn't have a crust, it just has bulgur to soak up excess liquid. 

The dish has a few parts: You're mixing cooked chicken with some soaked bulgur. You'll top that with apricot stuff, and then finally a bechamel. If you like, you can add some garlicy yogurt on top of all that, it adds a nice contrast. 

Ingredients

The only unusual ingredient here is the apricot paste. You can get this in middle eastern grocery stores, it's normally dissolved in water to make a drink called qamar ad-diin. The recipe needs 250 grams or so, they sometimes sell it in that size. If you have extra, cut it into strips, kids love it as-is. 

Ingredient list

• 3/4 c. larger size bulgur
• 2 chicken breasts (or similar amount of thighs)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 250 g. dried apricot paste
• 1-2 Tbsp sugar
• ¾ stick salted butter 
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2 cups milk
• 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• Pinch of ground nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon (optional if you hate those things)
• Yogurt (optional)
• S&P

Chicken and Bulgur

• 3/4 c. larger size bulgur
• 2 chicken breasts (or similar amount of thighs)
• 2 cloves garlic
• S&P

Soak the bulgur in a bunch of water.

Poach the chicken in water, lemon juice, and 2 cloves garlic. When done, shred. 

Drain the bulgur, mix with chicken, add a good amount of salt and pepper. Taste to make sure it's good.

Put the mixture in the bottom of a greased 9x9 baking pan. 

Apricot Sauce

• 250 g. dried apricot paste
• water
• 1-2 Tbsp sugar (to taste)

In sauce pan, cover the apricot paste just barely with water, and heat on low, stirring regularly. You're looking to turn it into a viscous liquid. You made need to add more water as you go to get everything to dissolve. The bulgur will help soak up any extra. When it's fully dissolved, pour over the chicken mixture.

Bechamel

• ¾ stick salted butter 
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2 cups milk
• 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• Pinch of ground nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon (optional if you hate those things)

Make a roux, add the milk, carefully add milk into the egg yolks until temperature is equalized, then add back into bechamel. When reasonably thick, pour over all the other stuff in your 9x9 pan. Bake at 350 for around 45 minutes, or until deliciously browned. 

Serving

You can make a garlic-yogurt sauce if you like by crushing a clove of garlic into some yogurt, adding salt, and thinning with water. It helps contrast with the sweetness of the apricot. You could also toss some slivered almonds on top.

 

I really like a side salad, with the vinegar/lemon juice contrasting nicely with the richness of the dish. 

You could serve this with rice, but I think the bulgur makes this a one-dish meal.