Myndi’s Modified Moroccan Chicken Marrakech

Preliminary Steps

Take all of the dry ingredients (left column) and place them in a reasonably deep bowl and mix them together. (If your sinuses are stuffed you can take a deep breath over the bowl.) Cover the spice mixture with plastic wrap and set aside.

Using a really sharp knife, cut a 5” spiral (3/4” wide) of lemon peel and set it aside. Juice the remaining peeled lemon and its fully covered sibling into a glass container and set it aside.

Throughly wash and dry the chicken breasts. Cut them into 3/4” cubes and place them in a deep ceramic or glass bowl. Do not set the bowl aside, you’re about to use it.

Retrieve the fresh lemon juice and use it to rinse the chicken cubes. Leave the lemon juice at the bottom of the bowl, we’ll use it in a moment.

Open a large (1 gallon) ziplock plastic bag and place it open and upright on your work surface. Now toss each piece of chicken in the bowl of dried spices and place it in the plastic bag. Notice how the spice mixture nicely covers each of the chicken pieces and your fingers? (Wash your hands if you’ll feel better – tumeric stains are not permanent on skin so don’t freak out.)

Slice one of the preserved lemons into 1/4” rounds and add them to the chicken in the plastic bag.

Pour the remaining lemon juice into the plastic bag and seal the bag tightly.

Halve (or quarter) the dates and olives, keeping them separate in tightly covered glass dishes until you need them.

Decision Point!

You may either place the plastic bag with the marinating chicken in the refrigerator and leave it overnight to tenderize and soak up the flavors, or continue after at least an hour’s pause (in which case don’t refrigerate the bag) during which you may take some “me” time. If you choose to refrigerate, clean up the kitchen, pour a pre-dinner drink, pick up the phone and order in Chinese, Thai or barbeque for tonight, or make reservations at a decent local place.

Return to Work

Whether you are returning from a brief break or a longer one, once you embark on this section the next stopping place is about an hour away. With the cubed, marinated chicken at room temperature, put on your apron and continue.

Take out a large Dutch oven, your favorite tagine or a heavy cast iron pan with a tight fitting lid. (A good Le Crueset casserole in any shape is a fine substitute for all but the tagine, which looks cool enough to be a serving dish.)

Slice the onions very thin, then cut each slice in half and set the onions aside.

Slice the fresh ginger root (you may microtome it, but most of us don’t have one handy in the kitchen).

Slice the garlic cloves similarly.

Add the right amount of Spanish Olive Oil to the bottom of the cooking vessel to allow you to comfortably sautee the garlic and ginger until fragrant. If necessary, add more oil, the onions and cook until they’re just golden. Using a slotted spoon (preferably wood or non-reactive plastic) remove the vegetables and set them aside.

Add cubes of marinated chicken a few at a time so that you can quick sear them and set them aside. When all of the chicken has been seared (not cooked, just heated enough to seal in the juices), return the chicken, sauteed vegetables, and the pieces of date to the cooking vessel. There should be some liquid at the bottom, but not too much – you’re not trying to poach this dish, rather it will slow cook and become juicier as it does. Put the tightly fitting lid on it, put it in the oven at 210ͦ for at least 90 minutes – and probably no more than 4 hours unless you want to reduce the chicken’s resistance to accommodate toothless relatives.

Check every 60 minutes or so to be sure it isn’t drying out. If it looks too dry add some of the broth. (Note: I usually use chicken broth, however, in the interest of keeping the kosher chicken kosher, vegetable broth works just as well.) If it looks too wet, leave the cover off for a while.

One hour before serving, add the olives, and if you’ve decided the dish is too monochromatic, you can add very finely chopped red and green bell pepper pieces.

I recommend serving this chicken over Moroccan couscous (Israeli couscous is lovely, but has a completely different texture, and different cooking instructions.)

Assume roughly 100 grams of dried couscous for each diner. Put the dried couscous in the bottom of an ovenproof dish (the dish you’re going to serve it in…) Add volume of water equal to the volume of the dried couscous to a saucepan, then add about a teaspoon of good olive oil for each 100 grams of water and bring to a rapid boil.

Stir the boiling water through the dried couscous and place in the oven which you’ve turned off and from which you’ve removed the chicken. Shoo everyone to the table, and as soon as they sit down, remove the couscous from the oven, fluff with a fork. Take the tagine to the table, then take the couscous. Serve immediately.

Additional Notes: As relishes/side dishes with this recipe I recommend Major Grey’s Mango Chutney, Blake Hills’ Middle Eastern Date and Cumin Chutney and/or a good homemade tzatziki (essentially Greek yogurt, pureed cucumber, lemon juice, crushed garlic and a generous flavoring of fresh mint.) I know this will engender some criticism amongst the most radical pc fringe elements because it suggests cultural appropriation of culinary traditions, but I still think it tastes good.