Everyone knows I love to make popovers, so I wanted to try these two popover-related recipes from this week's Times. I have not tried the large pancake yet, but I tried the Moroccan chicken dumplings, because I had some leftover rotisserie chicken to use. I had all the ingredients on hand except saffron, and I added a bit of chopped dried apricot to the chicken mix. (Okay, I didn't have harissa sauce, but I used some Thai chili sauce and some hot red sauce from the taco truck on 96th Street.) Overall, this is not bad, but it's a little lacking in something. The dumplings had to cook longer than the recipe said, but it may be my oven. They came out of the muffin tin very easily without sticking. I'm not sure why this recipe calls for spraying the pans with vegetable spray and then adding butter. Wouldn't the butter alone have been sufficient? This is possibly a little too greasy. (The reason they tell you to put a sheet pan under the muffin tin is that the butter bubbles up and pours over the edge.) As with many of these middle eastern dishes with cinnamon in them, this one ends up tasting a little too dessert-y. I would try this again with the saffron just for the heck of it, though. It's a good way to use up leftover chicken.
