Moroccan Cuisine

Chicken tajine with preserved lemon and olives

Cuisine: Moroccan Created by Hassan M'Souli

This chicken tajine recipe is Morocco’s second most popular dish after couscous and considered to be the national dish. Hassan M'Souli shares his recipe with Food Safari's Maeve O'Meara.

Ingredients

Chermoula Marinade

2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 preserved lemon, rinsed and thinly sliced
2 onions, chopped
½ birds eye chilli
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp ground cumin
Salt
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander, stems and leaves
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, soaked in a little water
1/2 cup olive oil
2 bay leaves, torn in half

1 whole chicken, size 10 or 12
1 tomato, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 large potatoes, cut into wedges
1 onion, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
150g pitted green olives
1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped
1 cup water
1 preserved lemon, cut into 6 segments.

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Preparation

Marinade
Process all ingredients together in a food processor until finely chopped and thoroughly combined. Leave for 30 minutes before using. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to seven days.

Wash and dry the chicken and remove backbone, wing tips and any excess fat. Cut into pieces. Rub all over with ½ of the chermoula marinade and refrigerate overnight or for at least 2 hours.

Combine the tomato and onion with a little more chermoula and spread into the base of the tajine (this will prevent the chicken from burning on the bottom).Arrange chicken pieces in the centre of the tajine on top of tomato mixture. Coat potato wedges with chermoula and arrange around chicken. Top with onion slices, then tomato slices and olives in between the potato wedges.

Mix chopped coriander with remaining chermoula and water. Pour over mixture. Decorate top with preserved lemon wedges.

Cover tajine with lid and cook on a very low gas heat for 45 minutes. Do not stir or lift the lid during the cooking process.

Serve the Tajine directly to the table and impress your guests with a waft of fragrant steam when it’s time to serve with couscous and harissa.

Moroccan Restaurants

Displaying 10 of 55 Moroccan Restaurants.

Restaurant		Suburb
1.	Builders Arms Hotel, bandroom	Fitzroy
2.	Moroccan Soup Bar	Fitzroy North
3.	African Feeling	Newtown
4.	Alhambra	Manly
5.	Out of Africa	Manly
6.	Kazbah On Darling	Balmain
7.	Cafe Mint	Surry Hills
8.	Sumac	Sydney
9.	Little Moorish Restaurant	East Perth
10.	Veritas Restaurant	Highgate

02 Jul 2011 08:49 AEST

JAM

Weston

needs longer to cook

cook for 45 minutes!? Mines been cooking for twice that and it's still nowhere near done. Smells great though.

13 Jun 2011 06:13 AEST

Ian

Abbotsford

Ingredients

Great recipe, but the ingredients on the written recipe are different from the video.

23 Jan 2011 09:49 AEST

Noels

Singleton

slow cooker

Do you think this would work in a slow cooker, I know you need direct heat (with a flame) but has anyone tried it this way?

05 Nov 2010 08:48 AEST

Kat

Prahran

You shouldn't use an electric stove

Hi Hannah, you can't use an electric stove because it will put the Tagine too close to the heat-source. I guess you could try a table top gas cooker (like the ones Koreans use for steamboat) which costs about $20 at Asian stores. It would be a shame not to make this recipe, it's one of my favorites!

17 Jul 2010 09:54 AEST

Hannah

Cape Woolamai

electric stove top?

Noticed that this recipe specifies use of a gas stove top. I only have an electric stove. Just wondering whether anyone can tell me whether I could still cook this on the electric stove or whether I could possibly use the oven? Ta

16 Jul 2010 09:51 AEST

Aybbbbby

London

Missing Ginger

The wirtten ingredients is missing ginger, so watch the video but looks great :)

27 Sep 2009 08:16 AEST

Pippy

Malvern East

Chicken tajine

Great recipe, amazingly tasty !! - will impress your guests. I actually used a larger chicken (about size 18) - there was enough chermoula - some ingred are missing in written recipe version - so watch the video - I don't have a Tajine so I used by large Chasseur dutch oven.

27 Aug 2009 02:43 AEST

irene

wyoming, nsw

preserved lemons

I watched the TV version, have the lemons & rock salt NOW & wantto folow the simple recipe. Please replace the one with water changes etc to the one shown on TV. Thanks. I can only rate the TV recipe

08 Aug 2009 08:54 AEST

Colin

Ocean Shores

Ingredients

Ingedients are definitely missing from the above recipe if you watch the video. Ginger, Coriander, Black pepper. Also although the recipe calls for two onions I only see one used in the video

01 Jun 2009 12:42 AEST

Alan

Donvale

Oh yeah ... this is good

Chicken, lemon and green olives just go well together ... we'll do this again (once I have an olive pitter!)

05 Feb 2009 06:21 AEST

Bree

The Junction

Recipe differences

Just wanted to point out to anyone making this dish that in the video of the recipe some extra ingredients are included that have not been written down. So I would recommend watching the visuals to get the correct recipe. I unfortunately found this out too late, but the dish was still tasty.

28 Nov 2008 02:52 AEST

natnor

sedoon

fantastic

I tried this tagine ina my cast iron tagine and it is fantastic. easy to make and incredibly delicious

02 Nov 2008 01:19 AEST

megan

hampton

preserved lemons

I used the original recipe from the tv show for preserving lemons and they worked well... now, all i can find are variations with lots of juice or water...and they always always go mouldy! pls put back the dry recipe.... other than that, this is a big hit with friends...as long as they like olives and lots of coriander.

12 Oct 2008 04:51 AEST

vmeineke@bigpond.net.au

Mooloolaba

Fantastic

Best receipe for Chicken Tagine!

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