Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons

This easy to make chicken tagine recipe with olives and preserved lemons is truly mouthwatering.

Melt in your mouth chicken flavoured with amazing spices and enough delicious sauce that's perfect for dipping and mopping with some nice flatbread.

Chicken Tagine

First of all, what is a Tagine?

A tagine or tajine is a Maghrebi dish that is named after the earthenware pot in which it is cooked. It's also called maraq or marqa. Source Wikipedia.

You don't have to have a Tagine to make this, you can just use a suitably sized lidded casserole dish and ideally one that can go on the stovetop since this makes for less messing about and saves on washing up.

*Update to this post in November 2020. Inspired by Rick Stein and his Mediterranean Escapes cookbook I just had to buy a Tagine, that was way back in 2008 when I started this food blog; in fact, it was my first ever blog post!

I'm still using the same Tagine to this day!

Top Tips!

Preserved lemons are available in jars in any good supermarket as is rose harissa paste. So with that said you now have no reason for not giving this a go.

 

If you really don't like olives just leave them out!

You can, if you prefer, use chicken breast fillets, but they will be prone to drying out during the longish cooking time.

Cooking for almost 2 hours allows the flavours to really get into the chicken and the sauce to become nice and thick.

Freshly baked flatbread for dipping and mopping is all else that's needed, or you can serve with couscous.

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Moroccan

Yield: 4

Author: Jan Bennett

Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons

You don't have to have a Tagine to make this, you can just use a suitably sized lidded casserole dish and ideally one that can go on the stovetop.

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 1 H & 18 MTotal time: 1 H & 33 M

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 heaped tablespoon rose harissa paste (Belazu brand) from Sainsbury's, a large Tesco's and Waitrose
• a good pinch of black pepper
• 8-10 boneless chicken thighs - skin left on
• a glug or two of vegetable oil
• 1 nice big onion - sliced
• 2 courgettes (zucchini) - sliced, then sliced again to make half-moon shapes
• 3 fat garlic cloves - finely chopped
• a knob of ginger - peeled and finely chopped to make almost 2 teaspoons
• 180ml hot chicken stock made up from 1/2 of a chicken Knorr stock cube
• a good pinch saffron
• 2 whole preserved lemons - sliced and chopped quite small (from Sainsbury's, a large Tesco's and Waitrose)
• a good squeeze of runny honey
• a handful of mixed green and black olives
• a small handful of freshly torn coriander leaves

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or Gas 4

1. In a small bowl mix together the paprika, turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper and the rose harissa paste.
2. Add a tiny amount of vegetable oil and mix together. Using your hands the mixture over both sides of the chicken. 
3. Gloves would be good or your fingers will be stained yellow from the turmeric as that's what happened to mine!
4. Heat a glug of oil (say a tablespoon) in a large frying pan and add the chicken pieces skin-side down. 
5. Cook till the skin is nicely browned then turn for just a minute. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
6. Without washing the pan tip in the sliced onion, and cook for about 10 minutes, until they are nice and soft; they will pick up a nice colour from the spice mixture left in the pan from cooking the chicken.
7. When that's happened add the courgettes along with the garlic and ginger and fry for just a minute. 
8. Make up the chicken stock and crumble in the saffron, stirring well to dissolve. 
9. Add the preserved lemons and a good squeeze of runny honey.
10. Give everything a good stir, put the chicken back in making sure it sits skin side up on top of everything. 
11. Put the lid on your Tagine or casserole and pop into a preheated oven for about an hour.
12. Have a check on it and stir in the olives you can add a little water if you really need to but I don't think you will.
13. Pop the Tagine back in the oven for another half an hour to an hour by which time your kitchen will smell amazing and everything will be delicious.
14. Scatter the torn coriander leaves and serve piping hot with some couscous and flatbread for dipping.

Did you make this recipe?

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