Chicken tagine with preserved lemons, olives and toasted almonds

This week, and for this fourth installment of food I chose to make you travel beyond the Mediterranean with a tagine recipe.

What is a tagine? The tagine is a traditional Moroccan dish and specifically Berber. It is prepared in a baking dish hollow terracotta painted often headed by a conical lid also terra cotta. The principle of the pan and stew food. Attention of many tagines that can be found on the market are only decorative items and would not survive cooking. The word tagine is not derived from the Arabic, but Berber (people living in Morocco).

In short! The culture time is now past, let’s get to the recipe for Chicken tagine with preserved lemons, olives and toasted almonds.

Time: 1:45

Ingredients / utensils: (for 6 people)

• 6 chicken legs
• 2 lemons
• 1 lemon
• 50 g pitted green olives
• 50 g pitted black olives
• 100 g of roasted almonds
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 white onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 zucchini
• 1 red pepper
• 6 sprigs of parsley
• 4 sprigs of cilantro
• 1 tablespoon of turmeric
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• olive oil
• thyme
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 large tagine

Preparation of the recipe:

1. In a bowl mash 1 ½ lemon confit eliminating glitches. The other half cut into small pieces.
2. Squeeze the lemon (non-crystallized)
3. Add to the bowl 12 tablespoons of olive and turmeric, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix well oil.
4. Finely chop the garlic, then add it to the sauce.
5. Chop the parsley and coriander, then add them with thyme sauce.
6. Take the chicken legs and rub them well with the sauce (do not hesitate to bite the chicken once or twice or to reach under the skin to coat the meat.) Marinate for an hour in the fridge.
7. Peel the onion and chop it.
8. Prepare the carrots and zucchini and cut them into slices.
9. Remove the seeds and cut the peppers into strips.
10. Put gravy in the tagine and place the chicken thighs. Cover with the sauce.
11. Add onion, zucchini, carrot, bell pepper and 5 tablespoons of olive oil and 30 ounces of cold water.
12. Seasoning (salt, pepper)
13. Place the tagine in the oven at 110 ° C and start cooking until the sauce simmers. Place the lid on the tagine and simmer between 1 and 1:30 depending on the size of the chicken thighs.
14. Open every 30 minutes basting chicken with sauce (beware of burns!)
15. 10 minutes before removing the tagine add olives
16. 5 minutes before removing the tagine brown the almonds in a dry skillet (or oven rack).
17. Remove the tagine
18. Add the almonds over the tagine.
19. Serve hot.
20. Serve with couscous and eggplant to the pan.

For the choice of wine to give this dish:

As usual I will tell you promote regional agreements so a white or rosé Moroccan wine.

For those who wish to drink other things I suggest:

• A Barsac
• A Coteaux du Layon
• A white Pessac Léognan (or red … it depends of the winery)
• A Chardonnay
• A Côtes du Jura
• Côtes de Provence (white or rosé)

Good week and a good appetite!

Jonathan Choukroun Chicheportiche