Lemon Chicken Tagine

With this recipe, I had to improvise quite a bit, it worked all the same, but it’s not the original, although apart from baking ones, very few recipes are the original these days. I also don’t have a tagine pot thingy, so I had to bodge one together out of stuff I have in my kitchen, namely a skillet and a load of foil, it worked so I suppose that’s all that really matters. Moroccan food wasn’t something I had tried before so I thought it was time to give it a go, after all I have cooked, Italian, Thai, French, German, Chinese, American, Cuban, Swedish, Russian and Greek to name but a few. A tagine seemed like the next logical step.

Lemon Chicken Tagine

1.5kg Chicken breast, skin on if you can get it that way

Extra virgin olive oil

1-2 large fennel bulbs

2 onions roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely diced

2-3 small lemons, cut into wedges

40g black olives, stoned

40g green olives, stoned

Pinch of saffron

500ml hot chicken stock.

For the chicken rub

1 tsp coriander seeds (freshly ground)

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground ginger

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt and black pepper

1.       First mix together all the rub ingredients, then rub it into your chicken pieces, place them in a bowl or onto a plate, cover and leave to marinate in the fridge this can be left for a couple of hours but is much better and flavourful if it is left over night, assuming you have the time.

2.       Heat a few table spoons of the extra virgin olive oil in your tagine, or in my case the skillet which will have a tin foil hat, with a hole. Then fry your chicken skin side down until golden brown.

3.       Chop each fennel bulb into 8 pieces and add them the onion and garlic to the chicken and cook for a few more minutes. Mix in the lemon, olives and saffron, pour in the stock and stir again. Cover with the lid or foil, if using foil don’t forget a tagine has a vent in the top of the lid so I wrapped the foil round the edge of the skillet and then loosely twisted it at the top so it sort of had a vent at the top. Simmer on a low heat for about 1 and ½ hours, or until the meat is really tender (if you are using bone in chicken, the chicken should be falling off the bone at this point). Add a little extra water if it looks as though it is starting to dry out during cooking time.

4.       When the chicken is done remove the lid and give it a stir, if the juices are too thin, let it thicken, by leaving it to simmer without the lid for a few more minutes, scatter in the parsley and serve with seasoned cous cous.