A nice rainy day in California requires a warm home-cooked meal, especially on a Sunday night! With the afternoon ahead, I decided to marinate some chicken thighs for a Chicken & Sweet Potato Tagine. My recipe is for a Moroccan style chicken marinated with an herb mixture of cumin, cardamom, ginger and a hint of saffron. If you’re feeling daring, you can toast & grind whole cumin and cardamom seeds. It’s like the difference between roasting and grinding your own coffee beans or using already ground coffee. Both are good, but one of them takes your senses to the fields where the beans are cultivated and picked by hand, letting the aroma slowly infiltrate your nostrils… Well it definitely elevates the result, but ground cumin and cardamom will work as well!
A Tagine is a dish that is cooked in a special cooking vessel with the same name. It has a conical top that is designed to return all of the condensation to the bottom which allows the food to cook slowly until it is completely tender. The tagine that I own is not for use on a direct flame and is used in the oven. Therefore, my recipe calls for browning the chicken first before placing it in the tagine.
To go along with my Tagine dish, I sautéed up some thinly sliced brussels sprouts with chopped apples and pancetta. To add a bit of decadence, I finished it off with a pat of butter easing some silky lusciousness into it. It went quite nicely with the Tagine.
Chicken & Sweet Potato Tagine
Serves 4
- 4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves smashed
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch saffron strands
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
- 3 whole cardamom pods, with seeds removed (discard shells) toasted and ground or 1/2 teaspoon ground
- 1/3 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 cups water
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, sliced in 3/4″ slices
- 1teaspoon cornstarch and 1 teaspoon water, mixed for thickening sauce
- Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- Marinade: Mix cilantro, cinnamon, saffron, salt, onion, garlic, cumin, cardamom, and ginger in medium bowl. Add water. Mix well. Rinse chicken pieces, dry and add to marinade. Refrigerate covered for 2 hours or more.
- Preheat oven to 375°. Remove Chicken pieces from marinade and set marinade aside. Blot the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in large fry pan and brown chicken on both sides until golden but not cooked through.
- Place chicken pieces in Tagine, pour marinade over chicken. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Add sweet potatoes and cook for an additional 20 minutes. Remove Tagine lid and cook for another 10 minutes. Open the top so that the steam will escape away from you. Remove from oven. With a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and potatoes and keep warm on a covered platter. Pour liquid into a small saucepan and heat to a slow boil. Let it cook down to thicken. If necessary, you can skim any excess fat and add the cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce slightly.
- If you don’t own a Tagine, you can also cook this in a casserole dish covered with foil.
(click here) for printable recipe
Sautéed Brussels Sprouts with Apples & Pancetta
Serves 4
- One bunch brussels sprouts, outer leaves trimmed and sliced thinly
- 2 medium apples, cored and chopped
- 4 oz. pancetta, chopped
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, optional
- Heat a large, heavy fry pan over medium high heat. Cook pancetta until fat is rendered and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to a dish, set aside.
- Without cleaning the pan, add the brussels sprouts and sauté until brown on the edges and almost tender crisp. Cover the pan if needed to tenderize them. Add the apples and continue to sauté until heated through and tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Top the sprouts with butter and let melt, mix in. Serve immediately.
(click here) for printable recipe