Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Preserved Lemons

I made a scrumptious Moroccan dish that Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in the movie Casablanca would have eaten and smacked his lips afterwards – Chicken tagine with green olives and preserved lemons, served alongside couscous with apricots. This is a recipe from Tyler Florence’s Food 911 show.

I’d seen the show over a month earlier and made the preserved lemons. A relatively simple procedure, I cut lemons, inserted Kosher salt in the cuts, squeeze the lemons into a glass jar. I had to fight the lemons to squeeze them into the jar. Luckily I won the fight, but not without squirting juice from the jar all over the kitchen and on my clothing. I added more salt to cover the lemons completely, and then put the lemons into the fridge for one month. I understand that the preserved lemon will keep for one year.

Preserved lemons

The meal was relatively easy to make once I completed the food preparation – I made a spice from scratch for the chicken – cinnamon, peppercorns, cumin, paprika, red pepper flakes and cloves. Note to self: Buy a spice grinder. Preparing the spice would have been much easier if I had a grinder.

I marinated the chicken overnight with the spices, garlic, ginger, cilantro, bay leaves, saffron and olive oil.

The easy part came when the chicken was first browned in olive oil. I loved the way the kitchen became filled with the aroma of the spices and the chicken. It smelled really good. Even my dogs become excited. They knew something good was cooking. Both kept hovering by the kitchen door and staring at me. They waited for some food to fall on the ground and their eyes would go from the stove to me and then back to the stove again.

I added the onions, preserved lemon, marinade, crushed olives, and chicken stock. Thirty minutes later the tagine was ready.

I flavored the couscous with chicken stock, dried apricots, scallions, fresh juice from an orange, extra virgin olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. The couscous complimented the chicken tagine perfectly!

The specially prepared lemons brought out the flavor in the stew and the chicken. The couscous made an excellent paring with the juicy, flavored seasoned chicken covered in the juices from the stew.

I’m sure if Rick from Casablanca tasted my meal, he’d say, “Cook it again, Paz.”

Paz ;-)

Chicken tagine with green olives and preserved lemons