My lovely friend from high school, Alison, just sent me a jar of Lemon Lady preserved lemons from a local vendor in San Diego. Side note on Alison – she’s one of those people who is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. We were great friends in high school, lost touch for years – and when we found each other again, nothing had changed!
Anyway, she’s been making all kinds of delicious dishes with these lemons and I couldn’t wait to use them myself. Since I didn’t have access to any of Alison’s recipes, I just put a few traditional morrocan spices together and this combo was definitely worth sharing. Actually, I just found this recipe on the Lemon Lady website for North African Chicken Tagine, so you might want to take a look at this one too! This dish I prepared was so aromatic while cooking, I almost couldn’t wait until it was done. One of these days I need to try one her recipes! This dish is savory, mildly tart and spicy – so if those are the tastes you crave, this might be one for you to try.
Morrocan Spiced Chicken
Servings: 4 -5
Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken your choice since you can do a whole cut up chicken, chicken thighs, breast, etc
- 1 large yellow or white onion
- 1/4 c chopped preserved lemons
- 1/4 c chopped green olives
- 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro 1/4 c after its chopped
- 1 tbls grated fresh ginger
- 1 tbls freshly crushed garlic
- 1 lemon juiced
- several tbls olive oil
- about 2 c vegetable broth I used Pacific Natural brand, Organic
- 1 tbls kosher salt more or less to taste
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground ginger I know I used fresh too, but I luv ginger!
- 1 tsp saffron threads
- 1 tbls ground coriander
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper optional
Instructions
- Rinse and pat dry the chicken pieces.
- In a large bowl or pan, add the chicken, all the dry spices (preserving some of the salt), and handful of the onions, the ginger, a tsp of the garlic and a tbls of the olive oil, a tbls of cilantro - and rub all together so the chicken is covered. Let stand for at least 15 minutes.
- Heat a couple tbls of olive oil in heavy-bottom pan (I used my favorite cast-iron pan that has a good fitted lid. Of course you can use a tagine pot - but you certainly don't need to. If you want to learn more about this you can click here).
- Once pan is hot, add the chicken and brown on both sides. This usually only takes a few minutes on each side. Make sure the pan is hot, but not too hot where you will burn the spices that are on the chicken.
- When pan is still hot and the chickn is browned, add the onions, cilantro, remaining garlic, lemon juice, preserved lemons.
- Now add the the a cup (or so) of the vegetable broth and make sure to use a spatula to loosen all the good flavors at the bottom of the pan.
- Cover and turn the heat to medium low so that there's a light simmer.
- Continue to add more vegetable broth as the dish simmers, so that there is sufficient liquid in the pan. It should be enough so that half the thickness of the chicken is above the liquid. You don't want it covered!
- After about 30 minutes of cooking, taste the broth to see if you want to add more salt or spices.
- Continue to simmer another 30 minutes.
- Serving suggestion: Spoon chicken and the "gravy" over your favorite rice. Basmati, Jasmine, Brown - all good choices! Don't forget to garnish lightly with a little fresh cilantro.
Looks good. Might be nice adding raisins at the end?? I think I'll try it. I need saffron though…
Wow the spices involved are so inviting! That Morrocan chicken looks, to die for!!chefchuck
My mouth is just watering reading this. We had a friend from Morroco that prepared a similar dish. It was fun to eat because you'd eat it using pieces of bread instead of a fork. He explained that you always ate the meat first. (The dish was served in the middle of the table.)