The Preserved Lemon Project Part 2: Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Olives, Preserved Lemons and Couscous

About a month ago, after years of saying “I’m going to do that”, I finally got around to preserving some lemons.  If you haven’t read the previous post about the beginnings of the Preserved Lemon Project, you can find the post here.  Basically, I set a goal for myself to recreate some wonderful Moroccan cuisine that I was lucky enough to sample a while back.  Preserved Lemons are a staple in Moroccan cooking.  Without the lemons, my previous attempts were just kind of “Meh”.  I was eager to try again, using authentic ingredients.

My little jar of lemons hung out on the kitchen counter for a full month, and I finally got to try them out in a recipe on Monday night.  For my first expedition into real Moroccan cuisine, I chose a traditional Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons recipe that I found over at Closet Cooking.  I looked through a bunch of different tagine recipes, and they all looked fairly similar.  I liked that this one included a touch of honey, as I was going for that salty-sweet-savory flavor. Plus, it seemed simple enough and on a weeknight, I’m always up for simple.

First things first, I mixed together my spice rub for the chicken.

Paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, salt and pepper went into my little bowl.

I decided to use chicken breasts and a few legs in my dish, so I sliced the breasts in half and put them in a large Ziploc bag along with the legs.  Then, I sprinkled the spice rub over the chicken, closed the bag, and moved the chicken around until it was all evenly coated.

I figured I’d let the chicken hang out for a bit so the flavors could permeate the chicken while I prepared my other ingredients.

It was time to open the lemons!

I popped open the jar and took a sniff.  It smelled perfectly lemony and the lemons were soft, fully macerated, and surrounded by a smooth, salty syrup. (THANK GOD!)  In all honesty, if I’d opened the jar and gas popped or the lemons smelled off at all, I wouldn’t have used them.  Before you use your lemons, check for the creepy stuff….mold, strong odd odors, an explosion of juice as you open the jar for the first time.  These can all be signs of lemons gone bad.

Thankfully, my lemons were good to go.  For this recipe, I needed one lemon, so I grabbed a fork and fished one out.  Don’t stick your fingers in the jar!!  You don’t want to introduce any funky bacteria to the lemons.  That’s just asking for trouble. Now that the jar was opened, it needs to be stored in the refrigerator, where the lemons will keep for a year!

I rinsed the (kind of slimy) syrup off of the lemon, dried it, and then used a spoon to scoop out the pulp.  When using preserved lemons, you actually only want the pith and peel, not the fruit!

I sliced up my lemon, along with an onion, and garlic. I also grated up some ginger and got some red and green olives ready to roll.  I just bought a small package of “gourmet” olives in the deli case at my grocery store and called it a day.

Once all of my ingredients were ready, I heated up a little bit of oil in a heavy pan on the stove top.  I browned up the chicken, on all sides, in the oil.  The minute the chicken hit the pan, I could smell those wonderful spices I was looking for.  So far, so good!

Once the chicken was browned, I removed it to a plate and then added my onions to the pan.  I let them sizzle for a bit and then added in the garlic and ginger.

Good things were happening.

I deglazed the pan with a bit of chicken broth and added the chicken back to the pan.  The cover went on, I lowered the heat, and it simmered away for about fifteen minutes.

After that time, I uncovered the pan, added in my preserved lemon, olives, a touch of honey and a bit of Asian chili-garlic sauce.  The recipe actually calls for harissa, which is a Tunisian chili paste. (Here’s a recipe for homemade harissa, if you’re interested.)  I couldn’t find harissa in my grocery store, but I figured that one of the three different chili pastes I already had in my fridge would work.  I chose the chili-garlic sauce, and it was perfect.

The top went back on the pan, and the mixture (that by this time was smelling AMAZING) simmered for 25 minutes more.

This gave me time to whip together some couscous to serve with the tagine.  I cooked some pearl couscous in a bit of chicken broth.  When it was done, I stirred in some golden raisins and a bit of parsley. Simple enough.  I figured the sweet raisins would play nicely with the saltiness of the sauce.

My timer buzzed, I crossed my fingers, and took the lid off my pan.  What I had in front of me was EXACTLY what I’d been looking for.  I put some of the couscous on our plates, and heaped the savory stew over the top.  The sauce was thick, rich and inviting. The chicken was so moist, it fell right off the bone. The flavor of the lemons, olives, the spices in the chicken and sauce, and the couscous with raisins was absolutely perfect.  There was so much flavor going on…sweet, salty, sour, savory!  I was thrilled!  Would I munch on a preserved lemon by itself?  Absolutely not, but mixed together with everything else on my plate, they were something really special.

If you haven’t preserved some lemons yet, give it a try!  Or, if you don’t want to wait too long, you can probably find some at a specialty grocery store, or even on Amazon.com. This meal was definitely worth the wait, and I can’t wait to try out another recipe using my little lemons.  Stay tuned!

 MOROCCAN CHICKEN TAGINE WITH OLIVES, PRESERVED LEMONS AND COUSCOUS 

Tagine recipe adapted from Closet Cooking