Have you ever tried cooking with a tagine? Or another type of clay pot? There’s something special about cooking with clay. The heating is more even than what you would get in a regular skillet, and the liquid that gets released from the food while it cooks bastes the food keeping it moist. A tagine used on a stove-top gives you that wonderful slow, even cooking that you would normally get from an oven-braise. The conical top returns moisture to the food below, and when the dish is done, you can serve it right in the pot. My first foray into cooking with the tagine was with this Moroccan chicken dish which turned out beautifully—succulent, tender, and full of flavor. I pulled the recipe together from various sources including the New York Times, The New Basics Cookbook, and recipes by Le Souk Ceramique, the maker of my tagine. Preserved lemon is traditionally called for in this dish (very easy to make, by the way, all you need are lemons, salt, and time), and in my opinion, worth making just for this dish. But if you don’t have any, you can easily use thin slices of regular lemon. Also, you don’t absolutely need to use a tagine to make this dish; just use a large, shallow, thick-bottomed, covered skillet.
Cooking With Preserved Lemon
Preserved lemon is a unique ingredient that’s at once very salty and very citrusy. There’s nothing quite like it. This recipe instructs you to rinse off the preserved lemon, but most Moroccan cooks would not do that, as it also rinses off some of the flavor. You can opt to not rinse off the preserved lemon, but use a lighter hand in seasoning this dish with salt if you do. If you use a tagine, you will likely need to soak it in water over-night before subjecting it to the heat of the stove. Doing so will help keep the tagine from cracking. Pat dry the chicken pieces and put in the bowl, coat well with the spice mixture. Let the chicken stand for one hour in the spices. If you do not have a tagine, you can use a thick-bottomed, large skillet with a cover. Heat the olive oil in the skillet on medium high heat. In either case, sprinkle the chicken pieces very lightly with salt (go easy on the salt, the olives and preserved lemons are salty) and place skin side down in the tagine or skillet for 5 minutes, until lightly browned. Bring to a simmer on medium heat, then lower the heat to low, cover, and cook for an additional 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and quite tender. Serve with couscous, rice, or rice pilaf.
