blue artichoke

Somehow GC and I started talking about this Wandering Gullet series last weekend, after having several drinks. How many countries had we wandered to? He guessed 5. I guessed 12-15, and started rattling off countries. He fell asleep by the time I got past five countries. I remembered 12, but there actually have been 14 countries, plus a few events (Rosh Hashanah, Thanksgiving). This week's Wandering Gullet is a return to Morocco. I made a Moroccan chicken tagine, after reading in Cook's Illustrated that you don't really need a tagine, a special upside-down cone-shaped pot, to cook Moroccan tagines (like "casserole," tagine is another term that refers to both the food and the cooking dish). A Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid is all you really need.

I had too many things to do yesterday, so dove right in to the recipe when I needed to start dinner. I wish I had read through the directions first. There's a spice blend that you make, which yields ~ 1/2 cup, and of that, you need only 1 t. for the recipe. I would have just added pinches of each of the seven spices; now I've got yet another spice mix in my spice drawer that I probably won't use very much. Shoot! Well, on with the recipe. The rest was easy, though I think the cooking times in this recipe are whack. Cook a can of chicken broth for 30 minutes, uncovered? It would all cook off long before that, so I omitted that step and put the pot over medium heat after I removed it from the oven to reduce the liquid a bit. That took just shy of five minutes.

And I didn't like it, not at all. I thought the chicken tasted funny, off. It must have been the spice blend, but I like all of the spices I used. There weren't any unusual ingredients to give it a funny flavor. I ate my couscous and gave my chicken tagine to GC, who really liked it. I'll give you the recipe because he liked it so much, but I want it noted that I thought it was gross.

Moroccan Chicken Tagine

I omitted the raisins because we ate them all as snacks last week. I think the dish would have been better with raisins, but I don't know that they could have saved it. Now that I'm a health nut, we eat a lot of raisins. I also used boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which were just fine. If you don't want to add a new spice blend to your spice rack, just add a pinch of each spice to the onions. I used 1 + 1/2 very large, huge, actually, onions, which might have been less than the 8 cups called for, but produced quite a lot of onion slices. I didn't think the problem with this dish was a lack of onions. Keep an eye on the time, especially when cooking the onions. If you cook them the full 25 minutes, watch the heat to make sure they don't burn. And after adding the broth, keep a close eye that all the liquid doesn't cook off and leave you with a mess of scorched and spicy onions. Or, omit this step and return the pot to the stove when you remove it from the oven, and simmer over med heat for ~5 minutes to reduce the liquid. I hope you like it more than I did.

5 teaspoons cumin seeds
5 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice
5 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons ground red pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon olive oil
8 cups vertically sliced onion (about 2 pounds)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 (10 1/2-ounce) can low-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup raisins
4 chicken thighs (about 2 pounds), skinned
1 (15 1/2-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
4 cups hot cooked couscous

Place first 3 ingredients in a spice or coffee grinder; process until finely ground. Combine cumin mixture, nutmeg, ginger, red pepper, and cinnamon; set aside.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and salt; cover and cook 10 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon cumin mixture, sugar, and black pepper; cover and cook 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Add broth, and cook, uncovered, 30 minutes. Add raisins, chicken, and chickpeas; cover and bake chicken mixture at 375° for 30 minutes. Serve with couscous.

Note: Store remaining cumin mixture in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 chicken thigh, about 2/3 cup onion mixture, and 1 cup couscous)

CALORIES 543 (13% from fat); FAT 7.6g (sat 1.7g,mono 2.4g,poly 2.1g); PROTEIN 31.1g; CHOLESTEROL 58mg; CALCIUM 121mg; SODIUM 548mg; FIBER 10g; IRON 5.5mg; CARBOHYDRATE 91.6g

Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 1997