• olive oil to brown chicken
  • 1 chicken cut up
  • 1 cup of flour
  • 1 large onion sliced
  • 2 roasted peppers sliced
  • half a lemon, zested and juice
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tbl fresh ginger grated
  • 10 olives chopped
  • 8 prunes sliced
  • 8 dried apricots sliced
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp curry powder
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 cup white wine to deglaze pan
  • 1 14oz can of whole tomatoes squished
  • 4 cups of veggie or chicken stock
  • 1 tbl honey
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground pepper

moroccan stew is one of my favorites. i actually love cooking anything that involves slow cooking. this one happens to be one of my fav recipes. a couple years ago while walking around my old neighborhood i came across this little place called the brooklyn kitchen. they were having this great sale and i decided to go in and check it out. i walked out with a tagine. i couldn’t help myself. i was just reaching this point in my life where i was becoming very adventurous in the kitchen and i had always wanted to try and cook moroccan food. i brought it home and started researching recipes. i came across a Eric Ripert recipe for chicken tagine. at that time i had no idea who this guy was and decided to just cook it. over the years the recipe really morphed into something different. it has become a mix of many great things i loved about so many other recipes. his was however the start of a perfect meal.

usually i am just cooking this dish for e, the kids and i. i break out the tagine and i go to town. unfortunately half of my tagine went missing when i moved and i am cooking for a crowd tonight. my mom is coming up for a visit. she is one of my biggest supporters other then e and i love to cook different recipes for her. so i broke out my other favorite stock pot and while my kid’s were eating lunch i prepared my moroccan stew.

moroccan stew     adapted from  Eric Ripert recipe chicken tagine with plums and spices

  1. pre-heat oven to 350.
  2. in a hot stock pot heat oil, clean your chicken and flour, brown in olive oil and set aside.
  3. while the chicken is cooking, i take this chance to slice and prepare all the other ingredients. makes the whole process go a little faster.
  4. take your onion, garlic, lemon peel, roasted pepper, olives, prunes and apricots and saute them in the pot where you browned your chicken. after about 5 minutes add your spices and mix.
  5. let your spices cook with the onions and fruit for about 4-5 minutes, when you notice your spices are starting to stick to your pan, add white wine to de-glaze pot. cook for another 2-3 minutes.
  6. at this point, add your stock, tomatoes, honey and lemon juice. put your chicken back in the pot. let everything come to a boil.
  7. cover partly, you want to let a little steam out of your pot as well as some of the juices escape so the sauce can thicken up a touch, put your pot in the oven.
  8. let it go, don’t touch it. i usually leave this dish in the oven for a good 2-3 hours.
  9. when done, take it out of the oven and take the chicken out, put your pot on the stove top and bring the sauce up to a boil to reduce if needed. usually coating the chicken in the flour thickens up the sauce but depending on what kind of chicken you are using, organic and anti-biotic free tend to be juicer.

tonight we served this with some white rice that was mixed with sauteed red onions, naan and a green salad. fabulous. was so good.

i know this is not a simple and easy dish to prepare, but it is so worth it. the spices all come together and it the chicken is so juicy. the dried fruit give the dish a great sweet taste .  when i am home on a day like this and cooking for a crowd i love to make dishes like this. your house just smells amazing.  it gets me really excited about my meal, making the whole process so worth it. this would be a great dish to cook in a crock pot too.

 

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