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A few years ago, I purchased a tagine, an earthenware cooking and serving pot common in North Africa, with which to experiment.
Have you ever tried cooking with a tagine? Or another type of clay pot?
There’s something special about cooking with clay. The heating is more even than what you would get in a regular skillet, and the liquid that gets released from the food while it cooks bastes the food keeping it moist.
A tagine used on a stove-top gives you that wonderful slow, even cooking that you would normally get from an oven-braise. The conical top returns moisture to the food below, and when the dish is done, you can serve it right in the pot.
My first foray into cooking with the tagine was with this Moroccan chicken dish which turned out beautifully—succulent, tender, and full of flavor.
I pulled the recipe together from various sources including the New York Times, The New Basics Cookbook, and recipes by Le Souk Ceramique, the maker of my tagine.
Preserved lemon is traditionally called for in this dish (very easy to make, by the way, all you need are lemons, salt, and time), and in my opinion, worth making just for this dish. But if you don’t have any, you can easily use thin slices of regular lemon.
Also, you don’t absolutely need to use a tagine to make this dish; just use a large, shallow, thick-bottomed, covered skillet.
Moroccan Chicken with Lemon and Olives Recipe
This recipe shines with preserved lemons. If you don't have access to any, you can use thin slices of regular or Meyer lemon, and you'll likely need to add quite a bit of salt to the dish at the end.
If you use a tagine, you will likely need to soak it in water over-night before subjecting it to the heat of the stove. Doing so will help keep the tagine from cracking.
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 chicken, 3-4 lbs, cut into 8 pieces (or 3-4 lbs of just chicken thighs and legs, the dark meat is more flavorful)
- Salt
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, chopped
- The rind from 1 preserved lemon, rinsed in cold water, pulp discarded, rind cut into thin strips (if you don't have preserved lemon, use whole thin slices of regular lemon)
- 1 cup green olives, pitted
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Method
1 Marinate chicken in spice rub: Combine all the spices—paprika, cumin, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper—in a large bowl.
Pat dry the chicken pieces and put in the bowl, coat well with the spice mixture. Let the chicken stand for one hour in the spices.
2 Brown chicken pieces in tagine or skillet: If you are using a clay tagine (if you have one, you must soak the bottom in water overnight before using), place it on a heat diffuser
If you do not have a tagine, you can use a thick-bottomed, large skillet with a cover. Heat the olive oil in the skillet on medium high heat.
In either case, sprinkle the chicken pieces very lightly with salt (go easy on the salt, the olives and preserved lemons are salty) and place skin side down in the tagine or skillet for 5 minutes, until lightly browned.
3 Add garlic and onions, cover and cook: Lower the heat to medium-low, add the garlic and onions over the chicken. Cover and let cook for 15 minutes.
4 Add lemon, olives, raisins, water, then cover and simmer: Turn chicken pieces over. Add the lemon slices, olives, raisins, and 1/2 cup water.
Bring to a simmer on medium heat, then lower the heat to low, cover, and cook for an additional 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and quite tender.
5 Stir in parsley, cilantro: Mix in fresh parsley and cilantro right before serving. Adjust seasonings to taste.
Serve with couscous, rice, or rice pilaf.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Moroccan Chicken with Lemon and Olives
Great success! I adapted slightly by using harissa paste. Even my son, who is fussy loved the flavours. Used a skillet to brown everything off then transferred to tagine to slow cook on the oven. Meat falling from bones, and loads of lovely juice to soak into the couscous.
xxxxxyyyyy
This was so amazing!!! Cooked it in a skillet using boneless, skinless chicken breasts (we don’t like dark meat) and it still came out moist and delicious. Picky hubby said I had to make this again.
I also added some chopped up dried apricots along with the raisins because I had some that needed to be used up.
I highly recommend using preserved lemon. They are so easy to make and last for a long time.
xxxxxyyyyy
Hi Kelly, good call on the chopped dried apricots! So glad you and your husband liked the dish.
Quick, easy and yummy! Great recipe!Thanks!
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This came out awesome! So flavourful and easy to prepare. I used dried cranberries as I didn’t haha was any raisins and the result was fantastic!
xxxxxyyyyy
Dried cranberries will work! And they’ll add a bit of extra tartness to the dish. So glad you liked it with that substitution!
This is such a wonderful dish…the layers of flavors are like an explosion in your mouth. I want to make this for a girlfriends birthday dinner and one of my guests does not eat meat. I’m thinking of searing a piece of salmon for her…do you think that would work if I added it for the last 10 minutes or so of cooking?
Thanks for all of the good recipes over the years. You’re in my kitchen a lot with me and I’m never disappointed in anything I make for the first time!
xxxxxyyyyy
Hi Linda, we love to hear how you have been reading and cooking with us for so long.
When you speak of the guest who does not eat meat, do you mean the guest is a pescatarian, or simply does not prefer to eat chunks of meat? From what I read here, it sounds like you are going to sear the salmon and then add it to the stew for a bit so it can get nice and stew-y. If your guest does not eat meat, they likely will not want to eat the stew the chicken itself was cooked in. If that’s the case, you could do a single portion of something stand-alone, like Foil Baked Salmon with Leeks and Bell Peppers (and maybe throw a few olives in there for good measure). You can cook the leek mixture, assemble the packet ahead of time, and and pop it in the oven during the last 12 to 15 minutes of the stewing time for the chicken.
But if it’s cool with your guest to have the salmon stewed in the pot with the rest of the Moroccan Chicken goodness, I’d say sear the salmon filet and add it in the final minute or so–salmon cooks fast and falls apart fast!
I hope this all helps. Happy birthday to your girlfriend!