Moroccan Chicken Tagine

My beautiful tagine!

My beautiful roommate Danielle got me a tagine for my birthday! I finally got a chance to use it last night and the dish turned out great! Chicken, onions, apricots and a Moroccan seasoning packet simmered in chicken broth for 40 minutes , topped with toasted almonds , all on top of a bed of couscous = delicious.

I had never heard of a tagine (I still don’t know if I even say it correctly) so I did a little research. I found out that I was supposed to season my tagine before using it…oops. You’re supposed to soak it in water overnight and dry. Then you put it in the oven and turn on to 300 degrees; let it cook for 2 hours. Then turn the oven off and let the tagine cool down inside the oven. This process will cause the tagine to crack naturally. You don’t ever want to subject a tagine to rapid temperature change or it will crack. You’re also supposed to coat the interior of the tagine with olive oil before storing. Guess I have a task for tonight!

It sounds like you can use the tagine on the stovetop but it’s better to use in the oven so the heat is distributed more evenly.

Don’t have a tagine? Not a problem, just use a dutch oven or a slow cooker! The tagine works similarly; as the food cooks the steam rises, condenses, and drips down the sides back into the dish. The difference is the shape of the lid. With a flat lid the water sits on the underside of the lid whereas with the conical lid, it drips back down into the food.

You can also use the bottom as a serving dish.

Here is the recipe, I modified the recipe on the back of the seasoning packet.

Ingredients (Serves 3)

Chicken for 3 people ( I used about 6 frozen chicken tenders)
1 box of couscous

½ medium yellow onion chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced

½ cup chopped apricots

¾ cup chicken broth

½ World Market Moroccan seasoning packet (you should be able to find these at a specialty store, if not there are some recipe links at the end)

¼ cup toasted almonds (Bake shaved almonds @350 degrees for a 10 minutes)

Directions
1. Put some butter in a skillet at high heat. Put your chicken in and brown on both sides but don’t cook all the way through.
2. Put onions, diced garlic, chopped apricots, seasoning and chicken broth in the tagine. Add the chicken once it has browned.
3. I cooked this on the stove top for about 40 minutes on simmer.
4. Cook your couscous according to directions about 10 minutes before the tagine is done.
5. Combine couscous and tagine mix, top with your toasted almonds and serve!


Ian and I both enjoyed this dish. It was a nice change to have middle eastern/Moroccan food. The only thing I would have added was a little spice, maybe a dash of red pepper flakes. The seasoning packet had a lot of cumin in it so a little spice would have been a good mix.

There are a lot of Moroccan mix recipes online, here are a few:

http://penandfork.com/recipes/moroccan-spice-blend/

http://kathrynelliott.com.au/blog/2008/04/02/the-moroccan-spice-blend-that-saved-me