Heirloom Kitchen
Born in Italy but raised in Rhode Island, Gass is familiar with that sense of duality with which immigrant families live. At school, she was American; at home, she was Italian. Honoring our ancestry w...
Safoi has many beautiful tagines in her home. A tagine is a cooking vessel used in Moroccan recipes that is made of earthenware and has a domed top that returns all condensation to the food, keeping everything moist (genius!). It is perfect for slow-cooked foods. Stews and bone-in chicken dishes are created in this beautiful pot, and the flavor is unmatched. Meat falls off the bone, and all the flavors marry together. If you invest in one, you may never use your slow cooker again. Tagine is also the name of a type of dish commonly served in Morocco. A tagine is a slow-cooked savory and hearty stew that is made in the pot of the same name. If you already own a slow cooker, you don’t necessarily have to buy a tagine. But when I place my tagine on the stove and fire it up, I feel as if I’ve been transported to Morocco.
Ingredients
SERVINGS: 6 Serving(s)
Marinade
- ½ teaspoon saffron threads
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon coarse salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ cup canola oil
Stew
- 1 (1½-pound) whole chicken
- 7 large carrots, peeled
- 1 small yellow onion, minced
- ½ cup olives (Mediterranean or Kalamata)
- ½ preserved lemon, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
Preparation
Combine the saffron, ginger, salt, pepper, olive oil, and canola oil in a large bowl. Set aside.
Clean and thoroughly wash the chicken, then cut it into 8 pieces. Add the chicken to the bowl with the marinade, massaging the marinade into the chicken. Cut the carrots in half and remove their yellow cores. Open the tagine (or slow cooker) and lay the onion on the bottom. Arrange the carrots over the onion. Lay the chicken with all of the marinade over the vegetables. Add 1 cup water and cover.
Cooking
If using a tagine, cook on very low heat for 1 hour. After 30 minutes, check to ensure the bottom is not dry. Add another ½ cup water, if necessary. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, add the olives and the preserved lemon.
If using a slow cooker, set the cooker on high for 3¾ hours. Add olives and lemon, then continue to cook on high for another 15 minutes.
Garnish with parsley and serve!
More from our winter issue
In Our Winter 2019 Issue
When we are preparing our slate of stories for a given issue, we act with intention. We endeavor to cover a broad range of food and sustainability topics and to select stories that offer coverage of a...
