Moroccan Chicken Tagine
A delicious one pot dish. This version is not made in a traditional tagine (earthen cookware) though still carries the essence of the dish.
Ingredients
Chicken and Tagine Base
- 10-12 bone in skin on chicken thighs
- 10 cloves garlic finely chopped
- ¼ teaspoon saffron threads
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 2 teaspoon hot paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 3 medium onions sliced thin
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 bay leaves
- 15 Kalamata olives pitted and halved
- 12 green olives pitted and halved
- 2-3 small preserved lemons pulp removed and peel thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock (without salt)
- juice of ½ lemon
- 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Apricots
- 10 dried apricots halves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tablespoons honey
- 3/4 cups water
Instructions
- Place chicken thighs in a bowl and add all spices, hot and sweet paprika, cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt and pepper to taste as well as olive oil. Toss and make sure chicken is well coated. Note the chicken is the only part of this dish I season very well. Other ingredients added later on add the saltiness you need for this dish.
- Let the chicken sit covered in the fridge for at least an hour and up to 8. You can also start cooking your meal right away, depends on how much time you have on hand.
- In a very large frying pan or cast iron on medium heat add a tablespoon of live oil and sear your chicken in batches until nicely browned but make sure your spices don't burn. Your chicken does not have to be fully cooked.
- Bloom your saffron. In a small dish add saffron threads and 1-2 cubes of ice. As the ice melts it will bring out the colour and flavours of your saffron. Note you may grind your saffron in mortar and pestle before adding ice cubes. If you don't have ice cubes i have had success blooming with just cold water, just give yourself enough time.
- Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside on a plate. In that same pan that should have some chicken fat and spices, add your sliced onions and sauté for 10 minutes until they start to brown. Stir often so onions don't burn.
- After 10 minutes add your minced garlic, cinnamon stick and bay leaves and sauté for an addition 10 minutes or more until your onions begin to caramelize and are significantly wilted, browned and fragrant.
- Add your chicken back into the pot and arrange on top of your onions and reduce the heat to low so onions don't burn while you are layering.
- Top your chicken with olives, sliced preserved lemon peels, chicken stock and liquid and threads from bloomed saffron. Squeeze the juice from 1/2 a lemon onto the dish. Simmer on low and allow chicken to cook and flavours to meld together.
- Your olives and preserved lemon are salty and chicken should have been well seasoned so at this point I usually don't have to add extra seasoning and taste and adjust level of salt to taste.
- In the mean time add your dried apricots, honey, cinnamon stick and water into a small sauce pan and let simmer until it reduces.
- Spoon the apricots and the reduced thickened sweet liquid over your chicken tagine.
- After chicken has simmer for at least 30 minutes, reduced and is cooked through, add your chopped parsley on top and serve with bread or couscous.