Passport to Eat

Passport & Plate - Moroccan-Spiced Orange Rosemary Chicken

Morocco | Thursday, January 30, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
8 chicken thighs, at room temperature
3 tablespoons ras el hanout
1 whole orange, quartered
Grated zest of 2 oranges
Juice from 2 oranges
1/4 cup honey
2-4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, depending on how tangy you'd like your sauce to taste
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Salt to taste
1/4 cup fresh mint, coarsely chopped

 

How to prepare this recipe
Preheat your oven to 375F.

Arrange your chicken in a 9×13-inch pan, and pat the chicken lightly with a paper towel to absorb any excess moisture. Season both sides of the chicken with some salt. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of ras el hanout over the chicken, flip the chicken over, and sprinkle the remaining spice blend over the underside of the chicken.

Massage the ras el hanout into the chicken, just to make sure you infuse it with all the wonderful flavors. Arrange the chicken pieces skin side up and tuck the quartered oranges around and under the seasoned chicken.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan mix together the orange juice, orange zest, honey, balsamic vinegar and rosemary. Simmer this orange and rosemary mixture over medium heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly, until it thickens slightly and reduces in volume by about a quarter.

Take the sauce of the heat, and add salt to taste. At this point you can add a touch more honey if the sauce is a bit acerbic, or some balsamic vinegar if it veers on the sweet side.

Pour the orange rosemary sauce over the seasoned chicken pieces and pop it in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes.
After the 15 minutes are up, baste the chicken with any pan juices. Tent a piece of foil loosely over the pan, and return it to the oven for another 30-35 minutes. The foil will prevent the chicken from browning too quickly and drying out.

During the last 15 minutes of cooking, give the chicken another quick basting and continue to cook without the foil, to allow the chicken to get beautifully bronzed.

Scatter the chopped mint over the chicken just before serving. This pairs up nicely with roasted sweet potatoes or better still, on a bed of couscous.

 

The story behind this recipe
Sometimes it takes a life-altering event to propel us into doing something we’ve always wanted to do, but never had the courage - or time - to actually do. For me, that life-altering event was saying good-bye to my beloved New York. And that “thing” I’ve always wanted to do was to travel around Morocco. When my US work visa expired and the subsequent job interviews I had resulted in no job offers, I decided it was time to fulfill a new dream as an old one came to an end. I packed away 3 years of my life into a storage facility, threw some items into a suitcase and booked a ticket to Marrakech. For 2 weeks I gallivanted around this mystical North African country, gazing in wonderment at the sweeping minarets peppered across the city and snapping photographs of jeweled fruit garlands and intricately painted clay vessels displayed around the medina. I had many meals in Morocco but my favorite was at a restaurant called Al Kadar. The chicken tagine I ordered was served in a large conical vessel, and when I gently lifted the cone-like lid, my face was hit with a fragrant burst of steam that smelled like a bouquet of rosemary and oranges. Like their Indian counterparts, Moroccan cuisine is pungent and loaded with flavor. But unlike Indian food, Moroccan food tends to veer towards the sweet, given their tendency to incorporate fruits – fresh or dried – into their main dishes. After chatting briefly with my server, I discovered that Moroccan households cook with a spice blend called ras el hanout. I brought back bags of this magical spice so I could create something similar to the orange rosemary chicken tagine. My version involves massaging the ochre-hued spice over chicken before dousing it with a sauce made of oranges, honey and rosemary. Though certainly not authentic Moroccan, it borrow the flavors and concepts of Moroccan cooking, and the aromatic fug that engulfs the kitchen while the chicken cooks makes me feel, for the briefest of moments, that I’m back in Morocco.