Saturday morning and getting my head around the food for Sunday all I could think about was the fact we had too much Sumac in the house.

I am reasonably sure that the first time I heard about Sumac was watching one of the early Nigella Lawson programmes on the TV, back when she was good. I bought some then and now if I see some in a shop I will buy it again just so I don’t run out.

But for the last few months there has been a packet on the side waiting to get opened and so today we had a go at it.

The International Store was selling chickens with feet on. The man behind the counter offered to chop them up for me but I reckoned that I had knives as sharp as his.

I found the cleaver and cut two chickens into four pieces each.

A large metal tin then went on the oven and the chicken pieces were turned in the hot oil until they started to take on some colour.

As the chicken was done it was taken out of the pan and replaced with a mixture of onions, spring onions and garlic. The Sumac was stirred in and as the onions wilted the chicken was put back on top with a generous grinding of pepper salt and more of the Sumac.

We ate it half an hour later with salad and yogurt and roast potatoes.