Chicken Tagine with chickpeas, apricots and almonds

I made this without a net and it was a hit with the fam' tonight.

• olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 6 deboned chicken thighs
• 3 cups cooked chick peas
• 1/2 c dried apricots, cut in large pieces
• 1 c raw almonds, chopped coarsely

Fry onion in olive oil until edges brown. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Pour into tagine. Mix spices. Dredge chicken in spice mixture and fry briefly to toast spices and give chicken a bit of colour. Place chicken on onions. Add 1/2 cup water to pan, scrape pan and pour liquid over chicken. Add chickpeas and apricots to tagine. Cook about 2.5 hours at 300F. Fry almonds and pour over chicken and chickpeas.

I served it with cousous and a carrot and orange salad.

bean "gravy" for roast chicken

PMC, in his infinite wisdom, dumped two cans of white beans (we could have used dry beans boiled in water until tender), a few sprigs of rosemary, and some roasted garlic into the pan in which we were roasting two small chickens. This, in the last half-hour of roasting, turned into a bean gravy that went beautifully with the chicken and mashed potatoes. All the awesome of gravy, more food value than gravy, and none of the effort of gravy! (Note: We skimmed off no fat, so this was pretty damned rich!) Well done, PMC.

Moroccan-style chicken stew

These days, in high rotation at home, and inspired by our friend Ness, I have been making this ultra-simple crowd pleaser: Heat up a dutch oven and put in as many pieces of chicken as people (double up if you are serving Marines). Once the chicken gets to releasing some fat, throw in about as much chunky chopped leeks, carrots, and celery (if you have it) you can stand to cut up, and anything else you like. Add one chopped preserved lemon for every five or six people, and about the same volume of salty olives (like Kalamatas for example, pitted if your crowd is liable to break teeth). Add a mixture of red wine and water (or just water if you are out of wine) to nearly cover, and obscene amounts of salt, some pepper and a bit of harissa (maybe half a teaspoon per four people), and simmer for enough time to give the chicken a total start-to-finish cooking time of 35 minutes. Don't over-cook!

Serve with couscous and extra harissa for the heat-lovers. You can extend this with chick peas if you are short of chicken or heating up leftovers. As you can imagine, it is even better the next day.

chicken pot pie

I don't know for sure, but a "pot pie" might be a pie in which the pot forms the bottom, but there is a top crust of pastry. For my fourth pie of the summer I tested this assumption by making a chicken stew, adding a pie crust pastry top, and then baking it until the top was crispy. It came out like chicken and dumplings but with crispy, flaky dumpling-like servings of pie crust!

For the stew, I put two chicken legs and some chopped green onions in a covered pot, cooked them hot for about 15 min, added water to half-cover and a lot of salt, simmered it for about 30 min, pulled the chicken off the bones, chopped the chicken, tossed the bones, added peas and carrots, stirred in flour to thicken it (yes, cheating, I should have made a roux and it would have been better), and simmered it for about 30 min more.

I put on the pastry top and threw it in a 375 F (200 C) oven for another 30 min.

chicken and dumplings

Today I put chicken, onions, carrots, and celery in a pot with salt and pepper and covered it all (not quite) with water. I simmered it for two hours (checking seasoning now and then). I finished by dropping on top large spoonfuls of my my biscuit dough, as suggested by PMC in the comments of that post. It took less than 10 min for the dumplings to cook, at which point we had chicken and dumplings!

chicken and vegetables

This one-step, one-pan, three-ingredient wonder is the only reason J and I survived the last two winters. Each time we made it, it got simpler till we got it down to this:

• chicken thighs (these are so much better than chicken breasts, and they are sold dirt-cheap, even if you buy the schmancy organic ones)
• potatoes, cut into pieces
• carrots or beets or parsnips or turnips or similar, or not
• olive oil, salt, garlic, thyme?

Mix everything in a metal pan so it is coated with olive oil (don't skimp on the oil). Salt the chicken (and rub with garlic and thyme if you are really feeling like going to town). Roast (in that metal pan) at 450 (or hotter; we usually do 500, but PMC thinks our oven is mis-calibrated) for 40 minutes or so, turning the veggies once or twice.

Oh hot, sweet, and crispy quasi-deep-fried, chicken-fat-flavored root vegetables!

If you want a diversified diet (huh?), add, partway through:

• brussel sprouts (which come out great but only need 25-30 minutes, not the full 40), or
• kale (which becomes crispy and slightly burned in about 15 minutes)