Felicity’s Perfect Chicken Tajine

We have shamelessly copied this tajine recipe from Felicity Cloake’s Guardian post.  I have never met Felicity (in fact, I have never met anyone named Felicity – how positively provincial) but, I suspect that she is described by her friends as being, ‘enthusiastic about details’.  You can tell that she spent a LOT of time thinking about this recipe and we’re always happy around here to let someone else do the thinking.  If you want a granular explanation of how the recipe came to be – you should check her out online.  If you just want the ‘gist’ of the process – keep reading…  

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 red onions, thinly sliced lengthways, pretty-like
3 garlic cloves – skinned and mashed
2 tsp ground ginger ½ tsp
saffron, in a little warm water
1 tsp cinnamon
Juice of ½ lemon
2 small preserved lemons – cut into slivers
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
Small bunch of fresh coriander (aka cilantro)
6 chicken thighs
3 Tbsp olives  


Gather your ingredients.


Admire the sexiness of your tajine.  (If you don’t have a tajine – and, some of us don’t – you can still complete this recipe using a flat, shallow pan with a tight fitting lid.  As long as the moisture stays inside the vessel – you’re good.)


Heat a tagine or heavy-bottomed shallow lidded pan on a low heat and add the oil, quickly followed by the rest of the ingredients.Your cooking area (preferably outside) is going to start smelling VERY good VERY soon.


Stir ingredients to mingle the flavour.  They don’t need to be cooked through at this stage – everything is going to be cooked at the same time.Arrange the chicken on top in a uniform layer.


Scatter over the olives. Pour 175ml water into the pan.


Cover tightly and simmer very gently for about 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.  In our case we were indirectly cooking over a medium layer of all-natural lump charcoal in our Broil King Keg.  Heat set to about 350 degrees with lid down.  


(About half way through, remove the lid and flip the chicken over to even out the browning.) 


This is what our dish looked like at about the half-hour mark.


Top with the remaining cilantro and serve with couscous, pita bread, etcetera.  This is a wondrously tasty recipe – you’ll love it. Proving that tagines should not just be kept on the shelf and used as smurf hats at Halloween.