From the Notebook

Give Us Our Daily Spices and Deliver Us From … the Need to Possess Every Possible Kitchen Gadget

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Give Us Our Daily Spices and Deliver Us From … the Need to Possess Every Possible Kitchen Gadget

OK, I admit, I have issues. One of them is a desire to own almost every kitchen gadget there is. For example, you can cook a perfectly good Moroccan chicken without owning a tagine oven, but somehow, I convinced myself that it is absolutely necessary to have it. The problem? My tagine oven turned out to be too small of a cooking vessel to cook the amount of chicken I wanted to. So I ended up using

Ingredients

Moroccan Chicken

  • 2 pounds chicken (~1 kilogram), cut into pieces, skin removed
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 2 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil, divided
  • 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne (or more if desired)
  • Pinch of saffron (optional)
  • 5 garlic cloves, minced
  • ½ cup chopped apricots
  • ¼ cup chopped Kalamata olives
  • 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • Zest and juice of one lemon

Method

  1. In a tagine oven or a Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken into hot oil in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the pot. Brown chicken for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove and set aside.

  2. Add remaining tablespoon oil to your cooking vessel. Add onion and cook it for about 1 minute, until softened. Add all the spices and mix well. Sauté for about 5-7 minutes, until spices are fragrant. Add garlic and cook stirring for about 1 minute. add the apricots and the olives. Cook for 2-3 minutes stirring constantly.

  3. Return the chicken with its juices to the cooking pan and stir well until chicken is well covered in onion-spice mixture. Add chicken broth and bring to boil.

  4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150-degree Celsius). Cook chicken in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer registers 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74-degree Celsius). Serve over couscous.

  5. Tagine Oven…. I just had to have it!

Bon Appétit

Originally published on Daga's Cooking Journal.