Today’s Special: Jamshed’s Lemon Chicken

To make the lemon chicken at Ali Baba’s Kitchen, Jamshed Khalid started by cutting boneless chicken breasts into strips. He then marinated it, for at least 12 hours, in a blend of special spices.

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I wondered what was in the blend.

“Should I tell you?” Khalid responded with a laugh. “No.”

After the chicken’s thorough marination, all that remained was to grill it up for Ali Baba’s steady customers, who, said Khalid (pictured above), seem to like it any way he offers it — from the protein in a pita sandwich to the centerpiece of a platter of rice and vegetables with salad, feta cheese, white sauce, and hot sauce.

“We cook right in front of the customers,” he said.

Take-out and delivery orders will prove crucial to the ability of local restaurants like Ali Baba’s Kitchen to weather the pandemic during the coming months as Covid-19 cases climb and cold weather sets in. Call (203) 535-1164 or see the restaurant’s website to order the lemon chicken and other dishes for take-out at 986 Dixwell Ave. in Hamden. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9:45 p.m.

Khalid was born in Pakistan. He got into the fishing business as a young man.

“My dream was to get into the food business,” he said.

He thought of opening a restaurant or a bakery, but was unable to. In 1989 he emigrated to the United States and worked for a vending machine business. He didn’t forget his dream. “I love cooking,” he said, and “I love to eat really good food.”

He recalled visiting his sister in Thailand. She took him to a temple where he was allowed to make a wish for himself, anything he wanted, “and I wished for a restaurant,” he said.

In 2000, he took the leap and got a food cart.

“I was selling Indian and Pakistani food,” Khalid said. In 2003 he became owner of Noor Mahal, an Indian restaurant on Boston Post Road in Orange, and kept running the food cart out of its parking lot. He sold it in 2006 but kept the food cart, which he rebranded as Ali Baba. He rented space in a restaurant kitchen on Route 80.

He had the idea of branching out beyond Indian and Pakistani food, looking further west toward Middle Eastern food, but also toward making dishes that “everyone can eat,” he said.

He got a spot among the food carts at Ingalls Rink on the corner of New Haven’s Prospect and Sachem, and began concocting new dishes.

“The first thing I came up with was the lemon chicken,” he said. “That clicked. People loved it.” He watched business at his food cart soar, and began to add other items to the menu. He reached back into Indian food to offer kati rolls, alongside pitas and rice platters, gyro and couscous.

In 2014, looking to develop his business further, Khalid bought the building at 986 Dixwell Ave. He developed a kitchen for what had become a small fleet of three food carts as well as a dining spot, serving the food to order.

He expanded the menu further; the current offerings feature chicken, fish, lamb, beef, paneer, and falafel, as well as a wide assortment of other vegetable options, available on rice, pita, pita wrap, kati roll, or as part of a platter. The kitchen also offers chicken biryani, chana masala, hummus dishes, and desserts such as baklava and basbousa.

Khalid has seen the focus of his business change during the pandemic.

“There’s no business for the food carts,” he said. He now sends out only one of them, to the collection of food carts on Cedar Street near Yale-New Haven Hospital.

But takeout and delivery from the restaurant location are keeping him busy. Some customers who used to frequent the food carts now stop by there for their Ali Baba meals. Khalid believes his owes his continued customer support during the pandemic to the fact that the food at Ali Baba is particularly suited for takeout and delivery — and that “it’s very healthy. That’s the most important thing. Everything is fresh,” he said.

Over the years, Ali Baba’s has become a family business. Khalid’s wife Sobia and two daughters Huda and Huma work along with him on everything from the decor and design of the restaurant and its menu to the business and marketing side. Khalid described his family as “my right and left hands. Without them, I’m nothing.” With the family working as a team, they are looking into the possibility of franchising. “Hopefully soon we’re going to open up another location,” he said, in another town or city in Connecticut.

But meanwhile, some things haven’t changed at all since he opened the first Ali Baba food cart 14 years ago.

“Right now,” Khalid said, “the lemon chicken is the best seller.” Still.

When I tasted the chicken, it was easy to understand why.

The chicken was tender and flavorful. I couldn’t tell what exactly was in that secret marinade, but I could tell where it came from.

The lemon gave it tang. The bed of spices, redolent of both South Asia and the Middle East, gave it a robust flavor that cut through the other strong, tangy flavors from the white sauce (which I asked for) and the hot sauce (which I also definitely asked for). It brightened the vegetables around it and made them a pleasure to eat.

It tasted like where Khalid was from, and the experiences he’d had along the way.

The researchers found that, both during and the day after the simulated “party,” participants presented with increased levels of lipogenesis, or fat formation.

Levels of liver fat differed greatly between participants after the experiment, leading the authors to hypothesize that the amount of carbohydrates consumed by each participant may have an important role to play.

Replicating a tailgate in the lab
To prepare for the tailgate experiment, the researchers instructed the participants to swallow deuterium oxide, also known as heavy water, twice daily for 3 days before starting the study.

This allowed the scientists to assess rates of lipogenesis, the metabolic process of forming fat.

The scientists also told the participants to follow their regular diet but avoid alcohol the night before the study.

On the morning of the simulated tailgate, scientists checked each participant’s vital signs. They then took blood samples before providing them with a light breakfast.

The researchers also used dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to measure body composition.

Around 11:00 a.m., researchers took another blood sample and then encouraged participants to eat and drink for the next 5 hours. The foods ranged from hamburgers to cupcakes. The team collected blood samples every hour and measured participants’ breath alcohol content every 30 minutes to ensure they reached the desired level of intoxication.

In addition, 14 of the 18 participants underwent magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of the liver. This allowed the researchers to glimpse the level of fat in the liver.

After the 5-hour experiment, the participants stayed overnight in the research center. The scientists took a final blood sample in the morning, and each participant was given breakfast and discharged once their breath alcohol content was zero.

Individual responses
Before the experiment, 8 of the 18 participants kept a food diary for 3 days, which showed an average intake of 2,748 kilocalories (kcal) each day. On game day, people ate well beyond this, consuming an average of 5,087 kcal.

When broken down into food groups, 32% of the total calories consumed came from carbohydrates, 35% from fat, 10% from protein, and 23% from alcohol.

Alcohol consumption resulted in an average breath alcohol content level of 0.08 — meaning participants were legally intoxicated in the United States.

When looking at changes in the body, the group showed a higher level of plasma insulin after eating and drinking. Lipogenesis also increased, but overall, the group showed no changes to liver fat.

“Interestingly, in the present group as a whole, only the amount of alcohol consumed during [the 5 hours of eating and drinking] was found to be significantly related to the increase in percent [lipogenesis],” write the authors.

However, when looking at each participant who completed the MRS scan, they found different responses.

“Surprisingly, we found that in overweight males, after an extended duration of eating and drinking, metabolic responses were not uniform and revealed significant individual variation in the ability to protect the liver from nutrient toxicity,” the authors write.

Nine participants showed increased liver fat, five participants showed lower liver fat, and one participant experienced no changes.

The individual responses prompted the researchers to divide participants into two groups based on liver fat changes. Those with lower liver fat were less likely to have gained their calories from food and needed more