Straight from her new book on fermentation, foodie Charlotte Pike shares her recipe for chicken tagine with homemade preserved lemons… Tuesday just got a whole lot better!
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 skinless chicken breasts, sliced around 7mm thick
- 2 small onions, sliced into thin slivers
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 4cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
- Large pinch saffron, softened in 1 tbsp hot water
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 homemade preserved lemons, thinly sliced, or 6 small shop bought preserved lemons, halved
- 3 tbsp green olives
- 1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 200ml chicken stock
- 1 handful each or fresh flat leaf parsley and coriander, roughly chopped
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Set your tagine dish aside. If you don’t have one, you can use a lidded oven-proof casserole dish.
- Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the chicken and stir fry until lightly browned. Add the onion, garlic and ginger and stir fry for around five minutes over a moderate heat, until fragrant.
- Add the saffron, cinnamon, lemon juice, preserved lemons, olives, chick peas and stock and stir well. Bring to a simmer and transfer the contents of the pan to the tagine or casserole. Place the lid on and bake for 45 minutes until the chicken is tender. If you prefer a slightly less liquid tagine, remove the lid and continue to bake the tagine for a further 10 minutes.
- Serve hot, topped with fresh parsley and coriander with some steaming couscous. It is particularly delicious eaten in the garden on a warm evening.
Photo credit: Charlotte Pike
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