Moroccan Chicken Tagine

Submitted by NoOnionNoGarlic

"I am a great lover of chicken thighs, and they are so under rated in this country. The meat from the thighs are so much more flavoursome than the breast meat, and they don’t tend to be as dry. This tagine dish is one of my favourites, and is so easy to make. If you don’t have any of the spices in the cupboard, you maybe underwhelmed by the variety of spiced. But trust me, once when you stock up these basics, there are so many other dishes you can play with, and they only vary slightly in the quantity or combination of spices. I personally like to cook this dish on stove, but you can also slow cook it in the oven instead."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 14mins
• Ingredients: 17
• Yields: 2 Plates
• Serves: 2

ingredients

• 600 g chicken thighs, skinless with bones (I remove the skin myself as I found them too greasy)
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped to small pieces
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 5 cm knob ginger, chop into chunky pieces
• 2 thai bird's eye chili, chopped (I don't normally de-seed my chili, as I like them hot)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tablespoon salt (adjust to suit personal preference)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 500 ml chicken stock
• 100 g dried apricots, chopped
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 chopped carrot
• 2 chopped celery ribs
• 1 bunch of chopped fresh coriander
• 200 g couscous

directions

1. For this dish, I like to keep bones in the chicken thigh, and cook them as whole.
2. Mix ground cumin, coriander, paprika in a bowl. Put the olive oil in a big sauce pan with lid or a casserole in medium heat. When the oil is hot, put in the mixed spices. Fry them for 1-2 minutes until you can smell the lovely fragrance of the spices, add the chicken, ginger and chilli into the pan. Coat the thighs with spices to give the chicken a lovely coating. Continue fry them for 3-5 minutes, add the chopped tomatoes, and fry for a further 2 minutes.
3. Add chicken stock into the pan, make sure there are enough to cover the chicken, bring to boil. Add cinnamon stick, salt and honey to the pan, cover the pan with the lid and reduce the heat to let it simmer for 20 minutes. Adjust the seasoning to your personal liking. Let it simmer for a further 20 minutes.
4. Add the chopped carrots, celery and dried apricots to the pan, and cover with lid to simmer for another 20 minutes.
5. Put cous cous in a large bowl, and cover with the sauce from the tagine. The liquid should be enough to cover the cous cous with a finger width of extra water on the top. Cover the bowl with the lid from the pan for about 5 minutes. This would allow the cous cous to soak up all the flavours of the tagine. Uncover the bowl, and fluff the cous cous up with a fork. Sprinkle some of the chopped corianders and mix.