The World as I am Getting to Know it

Passport & Plate - Moroccan-Spiced Chicken with Grapes

Morocco | Sunday, February 2, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sliced yellow onion
4 large carrots quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
5 teaspoons olive oil divided
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon roasted cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon (more or less) red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken broth
4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
1 pound mild, medium or hot turkey sausages
3 cups seedless grapes
1/4 cup pitted black olives (Kalamata)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or cilantro

 

How to prepare this recipe
1) Place one jelly-roll pan in oven. Preheat oven to 450
2) Combine onion, carrot and 1 tablespoon oil in medium bowl, toss well. Arrange carrot mixture on heated jelly-roll pan, sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes
3) Place Tagine over medium heat. Add 1 cup of chicken broth and heat to simmering.
4) Combine 3/8 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and red pepper. Sprinkle spice over chicken. Heat cast iron pan over medium high. Add 1 teaspoon oil. Swirl to coat. Add chicken and brown hard on both sides. Place chicken into base of Tagine which has chicken broth simmering in it. Brown the turkey sausage in cast iron pan. Add to Tagine. Add carrot mixture to Tagine.

5) Place the jelly roll pan back in the oven to re-heat.

6) Place the lid on Tagine, bring the Tagine contents to a simmer and let simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

7) Combine remaining 1 teaspoon oil, grapes, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, 1/8 teaspoon salt and olives in medium bowl. Toss well. Place grape-olive mixture on preheated jelly-roll pan, place into the oven for 10 minutes. Add to Tagine and cook another 10 minutes.

8) Serve over rice made with broth, 1 teaspoon of butter and a fresh garlic clove minced.

Serves 4-5

 

The story behind this recipe
Our daughter returned from Morocco with a Tagine for me. I let it sit until I found this recipe from a cookbook called Cooking Light by Oxmoor House. When our daughter moved some 3,700 kilometres away, I gifted her a Cooking Light cookbook as I love all of the recipes in it.

During one of our long-distance conversations, I mentioned that I tweaked a recipe from this cookbook to be used with the Tagine. Lo and behold, she had done the same thing with the same recipe. So we swapped methods. She shared a few additions as did I. Since then, I have called on her to advise what to served with the dish. She advised that she added broth to the recipe and served it with rice to sop up all the good juices. Then I tried adding broth and also added turkey sausage. I shared the turkey sausage addition.

We have made a connection overcoming a huge obstacle(distance). I am proud of our daughter and her cooking skills. I enjoy sharing my skills with her and I know she enjoys sharing her experimentations with me.

I believe cooking is a very good way to span generations as well as distance in this case.

I would like to continue to learn new methods, new flavour combinations as well as new foods. I also love to learn methods and flavours from other parts of the world. Continuing to connect with our children (we have four grown) through cooking is also very important to me.

When our children were young, for a while we went out Friday nights to McD's as a break for me from cooking etc. Very soon thereafter, I decided to pick a new recipe to try and buy the ingredients with the money I would have spent on going to McD's, which wasn't very satisfying anyways. Thus started my love of cooking. Sometimes I would pick a country and try to make a full meal from that country. The cooking was fun again! I believe this helped my cooking skills as well as our children's very adventurous taste buds!