With an abundance of cured lemons, we made chicken with cured lemons tonight. You’re supposed to cook it in a tagine but we have no such thing, so I made it in our cast iron dutch oven.
1 chicken, cut into pieces, skin removed
1 large onion, chopped
about a 1/4 cup of chopped fresh cilantro
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
a dash of dried parsley, or some fresh parsley, chopped
a dash of dried ginger, or some grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
About 1 lemon’s worth of your sliced cured lemons, seeds removed.
Take all that, mix it together and let in marinate for several hours or overnight.
1 handful olives (green or black, whatever you like), pitted and cut in quarters or halves
olive oil
water or chicken stock
When you’re ready to cook put a swirl of olive oil in your tagine or a dutch oven.
Spread the chicken out in the pan, and put the marinade over it evenly.
Sprinkle with the olives
Add the water or chicken stock, you want at least enough to braise the chicken. But beyond that add as much or as little as you like to make it soupy or stewy.
Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then turn down to a simmer and cover and cook for about 60 minutes.
Flip the chicken pieces over and cook for another 30 minutes or so. Add more liquid if it’s looking dry, or cook with the lid off if it’s looking too soupy.
After 90 minutes the chicken will be meltingly tender.
Serve with coucous for the total Moroccan experience.
I made a coucous salad with dried apricots, almonds, and apples, with an apple cider vinaigrette. It was just delicious, but I would’ve rather had just plain coucous to soak up the lemon chicken sauce.
Leave a Reply