Chicken Tagine

Menu:

Chicken Tagine

Herbed Basmati Rice

We saw this prepared on TV, and we were intrigued by the combination of flavors.  A Moroccan tagine is a slow-cooked stew typically made with tougher cuts of lamb or chicken, olives, preserved lemons, and herbs. The slow cooking process is used to tenderize these tough meats.  This is typically made in a clay pot called a tagine.  They can be purchased in specialty kitchen stores.  We don't have one, so we used our dutch oven.

We used chicken thighs for our tagine.  The chicken marinates for 24 hours in garlic, cumin, ginger, paprika, grated onion, and the pulp from preserved lemons.  You can by preserved lemons in some speciality food stores, but we made our own by cooking lemon wedges with salt and water in a 250 degree oven for three hours.  These can be kept in the refrigerator for six months.  The chicken cooks in water, parsley, cilantro, and saffron (which we love!).  You add the chopped green Moroccan olives and the peel from the preserved lemons.  We served this over basmati rice with cilantro and parsley.  It was delicious!

Chicken Tikka Masala

Menu

Chicken Tikka Masala

Basmati Rice

Naan (Indian flat bread)

Dr. L Riesling

Crazy name - fabulous meal! Eating and cooking Indian cuisine is fairly new for us. As far as we know, there is only one Indian restaurant here in town, and I, Katie, was lucky to have the owners' daughter in my 5th grade class last year. Being interested in food, I would frequently ask her questions about their restaurant. Chicken Tikka Masala is her favorite dish, and although we had been to the restaurant a couple of times before, we had never ordered this. We decided to try it out the next time we went, just to see what we had been missing. We really enjoyed it. It was such an unusual mix of spices, and we were intrigued to find out what we were tasting. The first time we made this dish, we instantly knew it would become a favorite. It's really fairly simple to make, and everyone in the house (including the picky one) loved it. Apparently we didn't get enough of it the first time, because not even a month later, we were craving it again.

Tikka Masala is made in two parts: the meat (tikka) and the sauce (masala).  We began by rubbing chicken breasts with cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, and salt.  After letting this rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator, we dipped the chicken breasts in a mixture of whole milk yogurt, oil, garlic, and fresh ginger.  This thickly coats the chicken which is then placed on a baking rack in a sheet pan and broiled until the chicken is slightly spotted and charred.

While the meat was broiling, we started the masala by sauteing an onion until translucent and soft in a dutch oven.  Garlic, ginger, serrano chile, garam masala, and tomato paste were added and cooked until fragrant.  We like spicy food, so we added an extra serrano chile.  Garam masala is a mixture of spices that might be difficult to find at your grocery store.  Katie finally found some with the bulk spices in the health market section of Hy-Vee.  (This is quite a story; ask her about it!)  Garam masala is also available at Penzy's, one of our favorite spice stores.  If you cannot find garam masala, you can find recipes to make your own online.

We added crushed tomatoes and the sauce simmered until the chicken was finished cooking.  Once cooked, we cut the chicken into cubes.  Cream was added to the sauce along with cilantro, and the cubed chicken was tossed in the sauce.  We have since seen a recipe that uses coconut milk instead of cream.  We are excited to try this next time!  We served the tikka masala over basmati rice with naan.  Since this was a fairly spicy dish, we decided it would pair well with a sweeter wine, which we typically aren't fans of.