Tagine
Submitted by crimfan on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 8:05am
So it's yet another East Coast blizzard. As I was at home, in between work and TV, I decided to make chicken tagine. Fortunately I'd run out for shopping before the snow really hit. The classic tagine is an interesting mix of sweet and savory which seems very common in North African cuisine and less uncommon in European cooking. The ingredients are your usual Mediterranean items but combined in very different ways than in Italian food. The mix of spices is as rich as in a curry. I read several recipes to get a starting point and then went with this (amounts are approximate):
-2 broiler/fryer chicken, cut into parts
-2 medium onions, cut roughly
-6 cloves of garlic
-1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, julienned
-1/2 cup Turkish apricots, julienned
-1/2 cup dried cherries
-1/2 cup raisins
-1/2 cup green olives
-1/2 cup almonds
-1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
-1/2 cup prunes
-1 tbsp each of dried ginger, cayenne, allspice, cinnamon, fresh ground black pepper, paprika, and fennel seed
-2 tbsp turmeric and cumin
-3 bay leaves
-3 tbsp oil
-salt to taste
First brown the chicken pieces (with salt, as usual) in a skillet using the oil and transfer to a baking dish. Soften the onions in the same skillet used to brown the chicken and combine with all other ingredients in the baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees until the chicken is done, approximately an hour and a half. Serve with couscous or rice.
I'm sure this wasn't the best one I could have done but, hey, it was the first try (and it's not bad at all). The chicken should be submerged and to do this right I really need to get an enamel lined Dutch oven or something like that, not a Pyrex baking dish. Also, I think chickpeas would have been very nice.
There are some classic North African ingredients I'd really like to find. Harissa is awesome as is preserved lemon. There's got to be a place to get this stuff somewhere near me....
Comments
Making harissa and preserved
Making harissa and preserved lemons at home is very easy. The lemons keep indefinitely, and harissa is good for a month or so in the fridge.
Just quarter some lemons and jam them into a mason jar with layers of salt, adding a cinnamon stick, peppercorns, and maybe some coriander and/or mustard seeds and a clove or two. Top up with lemon juice to fill the voids, close the lid, and put it in a cupboard for a month or more.
And there are a million harissa recipes online: just toast and purée the spices with olive oil, and store covered with a thin layer of oil in the fridge.
homemade
>Making harissa and preserved lemons at home is very easy.
True enough these aren't very hard to make but I actually want to taste/use a few different varieties of "real" stuff before I make my own. I'm also someone with more money than time and space, so spending a lot of cooking time making pickled lemons isn't likely to be cost effective compared to simply finding somewhere that sells them... I DO live in NYC, after all. :)
The day after...
It's too sweet. As I reheated it for a late lunch/early dinner, I added 1/4 cup rice vinegar. Whether that's authentic or not I really can't say but it's better tasting to me, more multidimensional.