Tagine with lemon and olives
I love the classic combinations of lamb with apricots or chicken with green olives and preserved lemon but it adapts to the seasons, so always seems right whatever the weather. The seasoning is subtle but distinctive, an aromatic balance of saffron, cumin, coriander and cinnamon, slippery onion and plenty of chopped coriander or flat leaf parsley. Kdra is a particular type of tagine made with more onion than usual and seasoned with cinnamon and saffron, occasionally with powdered ginger too. Another distinctive ingredient in Moroccan tagines is salt-preserved lemon. The skin is the raison d’etre and it gives the food a wonderfully rich and creamy lemon flavour.
Ingredients
Serves 2-3
- 6 chicken thighs
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions, approx 200g/8oz in total
- 40g butter
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- Very generous pinch saffron stamens
- 400ml/16fl oz chicken stock
- 6 Belazu preserved lemons
- 18 pitted green olives
- 50g/2oz chopped coriander or flat leaf parsley or mixture
Method
- Trim the chicken skin. Peel, chop and crush the garlic with a pinch of salt to make a paste. Mix with the lemon juice and olive oil and smear over the chicken.
- Peel, halve and finely slice the onions. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed, lidded pan over a medium heat and stir in the onion. Cook, stirring constantly for 5-8 minutes until beginning to wilt, reduce the heat and continue cooking, stirring often, for about 10 minutes until wilted.
- Meanwhile, briefly brown the chicken in a hot frying pan, adjusting the heat so the garlic doesn’t burn. Soften the saffron in 1 tbsp boiling water. Stir cinnamon and ginger into the onions, stir-frying for a couple of minutes, add the saffron and then the chicken and stock. Bring to the boil while you quarter the lemons lengthways. Remove the flesh and slice each quarter of skin into 3 strips. Chop the coriander. Add lemon, olives and coriander to the pan. Stir well, cover and simmer on a very low heat for 40 minutes. Serve with plain cous cous or rice.
Please note the image above is for illustrative purposes only, and is not an original photograph of the dish described.
This recipe first appeared in the May 2008 edition of Saga Magazine.