#chickendinner #comfortfood #chickenthighs #tagine #braised
Get the recipe on my blog Gastronomer’s Guide:
https://www.gastronomersguide.com/2011/03/braised-chicken-with-lemons-and-olives.html
I love traveling, but there are still quite a few locations remaining on my bucket list, including Morocco. I love the robust flavors of their unique cuisine. But when you can’t travel somewhere, the best way to get to know a culture is through their food. And I’ve been cooking this Moroccan-style recipe for quite some time, and each and every time I fall in love even more with Morocco’s food and culture!
Although cooking this dish in the oven in a tagine would be the most traditional method, using a cast iron braiser or Dutch oven works just as well. This type of pan will create the perfect moist environment for turning out succulent meat.
Packed with pungent flavors from the tangy lemons, the briny olives, and the blend of warming spices, this dish will have you falling in love with Moroccan cuisine. Just a taste of this braised chicken will transport you to Morocco!
Credits:
Host, creator, writer, producer, cook, and video editor: Joseph Erdos
Video, audio, and lighting: Tom Reményi
Music: Louis Adrien, “El Diablo”
Hey guys so today I want to show you one of my favorite dishes that I’ve been cooking for a number of years and this is my Moroccan style brace chicken with lemons and olives now I haven’t been to Morocco but it’s one of the countries on my bucket list but that doesn’t mean
That I haven’t tried cooking Moroccan food at home I’ve tried making preserved lemons in the past I used to own a Tajin and I would make Tajin in the oven but today I want to show you this version of the recipe where I use a cast iron
Brazer to get that same kind of result as you would using a clay tajen in the oven using a brazer like this will produce a really nice tender fallof thee bone chicken that you’ll simply love so this Moroccan braze chicken dish is packed with flavor there’s a number of
Spices including paprika coriander cumin ginger and cinnamon instead of using preserved lemons I’m using me lemons and I think this will add a really nice sweet flavor and I’m using Greek olives and I think those add a really nice brininess to this recipe so let’s get started on this Moroccan style brace
Chicken with lemons and olives so I have my cast iron brazer heating on medium heat and I’m going to coat the bottom with a little bit of olive oil and I’m going to add my chicken thighs which I’ve already salted and peppered skin side down because I want to get them nice and Brown And while the chicken is searing I’m going to cut up my Meer lemons going to cut off the ends First and now I want to cut these up into wedges and now if I see some seeds and I definitely want to remove them because I want to be able to eat these lemons I love my lemons because they have this really nice sweet almost orangey Flavor now I’m going to give the chicken thighs a flip And now I’m going to remove the thighs to my bowl over here And now I’m going to add my onions and as always I want to add a large pinch of salt to the onions it’ll help them break Down And as the onions let out their liquid feel free to scrape up those nice brown chicken bits from the bottom of the brazer and in this dish I love cutting my onions uh into these long thin Crescent type shapes CU I think it’s just more rustic that way kind of feels
Like something that you would get maybe if you’re in a little restaurant in Morocco okay now I’m going to add the garlic and you want to sauté the garlic for about 1 minute until you can smell its wonderful fragrance you don’t really want to burn it or anything like that anyway it’s going to braze along with the chicken and so it’ll get extremely soft so
There’s no worry about cooking it through right now and now I’m going to start adding my spices one at a time I’ve got my coriander and my cumin my Ginger paprika and my cinnamon and I want to toast this a little bit just to bring out the flavor
More it really wakes up the spices to toast it just a little bit in this hot pan and I’m going to pour in a little bit of water to pick up all the spices that have stuck to the bottom of the Brazer this is where the scraping action can come into play again this is your chance to work out any lumps to scrape up all those little brown bits to get the spices to really Mel together and now I’m going to start layering in the Chicken add the juices and I want to layer in these lemons and now I’m going to take the rest of the water and just pour it on almost enough to cover it but not exactly because the lemons are going to let out a lot of their juices so this is going
To become even more liquidy um in the end anyway I will want to cook down some of this sauce because I wanted to get it nice and thick and that’s when I’ll add the olives so for now everything’s ready and set so that I
Can cover it and then let it s for about 45 minutes to an Hour and I’m going to take down the heat so that it’s on like a medium low I’ll check on it halfway through and give the thighs a turn the chicken thighs have been cooking for about a half hour so I’m going to give them a turn to make sure
That the other sides are getting as much attention as they need and this is a good chance to just kind of nestle in the lemons a little more and I’m going to add a little pepper here I’ll check the salt level later because of course I’m going to be adding
The Briny olives and I’m going to be cooking the mixture down a little bit afterwards so I don’t want to Salt it too much in advance so I’m putting the cover back on and counting on another 20 to 30 minutes my chicken has been cooking for
About 45 50 minutes and so what I’m going to do is I’m going to remove the thighs to this bowl I want to cook down this sauce more along with the olives and also right over here I have some water heating because I’m going to make some couscous to serve alongside this
Wonderful Moroccan stew and I’m not going to season this with salt just yet because I want to taste it after I add the olives and after I’ve cooked it down I’m raising the heat up a little bit so that I can start cooking it down and the chicken’s looking really
Pretty it’s taking on the color of the spices and here I have a cup of pitted green olives and I’m using like a Greek or an Italian variety I would avoid using cocktail olives because that’s not what you want in here and my couscous water is all set I’m going to shut this
Off completely I’m going to add some coarse salt to this stir that around so it dissolves and I’m going to add my couscous so the ratio with this is one cup of water to one cup of couscous and you don’t have to cook couscous at all it basically just absorbs the water so
Just cover it and set it aside and over here I want to to give this a stir and this color is just so amazing it’s like this most beautiful terracotta and you can see the lemons to have really softened nicely the flesh has almost dissolved but you still have the the
Rind which is going to be really flavorful it’s going to be of course a little bit bitter and a little bit Tangy but that’s what you want in this dish so now the stew part of our BRAC chicken has cooked down the liquid has cooked
Down nicely and I’m going to give it a good seasoning so a good pinch of salt some freshly ground black pepper and I’m going to give it a stir making sure to scrape down the sides and I want to give it a little bit of a taste because I want to make sure
That it’s seasoned Right that’s pretty good I’m going to add the chicken back in let it warm a little bit and I want to flip it around in the sauce tube because I want it to get coated all Over so I’ve got my couscous here now the secret with couscous is you got to fluff it with a fork so you want to run it through like this it gets really Compacted okay I’m going to give myself a serving of Couscous and now for the beautiful chicken let’s see I’m going to take this thigh right Here I’ll also take this little thigh over Here and I want some olives of course and some of the Sauce and here’s our gorgeous Moroccan Style raed chicken with lemons and olives I’m ready to dive in I’m not going to wait any longer because I am so excited nice piece of Thigh it’s so anxious I love the olives in it now I want to taste the Lemon the Myer lemon is perfect in this it has this really almost Mandarin like Flavor it’s not that astringency that you would think that you would get with like a regular Lemon and when it comes to a stew like this I love eating everything from the chicken even the skin because it just has such good flavor The couscous is the perfect neutral flavor to balance out all these really pungent really aromatic Flavors this is such a perfect dish to serve especially on one of those cold winter nights I think you can bring a little bit of Morocco into your home with this dish it’s just so satisfying you can feed a family of four to six with this pretty easily so if you’re
Looking for a recipe that can transport you to Morocco in the middle of winter per se then I think this is it so let me know what you think about the recipe which you’ll find Linked In the description below and thank you for watching and please don’t forget to like And subscribe