North African Comfort Food

It was a long day at work today, and I'm not feeling fantastic this evening, but I had one last menu item to create, and today was as good a night as any. The fact that comfort food is actually in the title helped a little bit too! :) So this meal is another excerpt from A Platter of Figs and other recipes by David Tanis. Remember my New Mexico post? Yup, it's from the same book. This guy gets around. In the introduction to this, the twenty-fourth menu in his book, he discusses the meaning of comfort food, and how it is interpreted by different cultures. To us, hearty soups and stews, as well as warm, gooey dishes like macaroni and cheese conjure up those images of a "comfort food," and in North Africa, the thoughts of hearty stews isn't far off-base.

From Flickr - by bocavermelha

The entire menu consists of:

Carrot and Coriander Salad

Chicken Tagine with Pumpkin and Chickpeas

Walnut Cigars

I scrapped the thought of making the cigars, even though I had thawed my phyllo dough and everything. I just wasn't in the mood for another baking catastrophe this evening. I put the chickpeas on to boil since they had to cook for over an hour and then got to work on the rest of the ingredients. This dish was fairly easy to complete, as the recipe really went step by step, and there wasn't much multi-tasking involved. 

I cooked up some diced onions in butter and oil, until they were golden. These onions became the bottom layer of my casserole dish (since I don't have a tagine...yet!) After that, I laid large slices of seasoned butternut squash on top of the onions. I couldn't find pumpkin...I think it's a tad past the season for those, but the butternut squash worked out swimmingly. After that, I layered on my seasoned chicken thighs and drumsticks. Finally, I poured some of the liquid that the chickpeas were cooking in on top of this concoction and stuck it in the oven! 

From Flickr - by visiting-africa

While that was cooking, I prepared the Carrot and Coriander Salad, which, I have to say, was just eh. It was raw, and I probably didn't leave enough time for the acidity of the lemon juice to soften the carrots, but it was just okay. The flavors melded well with the main course but I'm not a huge fan of raw carrots to begin with. 

And back to the main event! The chicken skin browned nicely by the time it was time to take my casserole dish out of the oven, and the chickpeas had just finished cooking. I mixed those with some butter, parsley and cinnamon (I think that was my favorite part - SO GOOD!) and then it was time to plate! I put a chicken drum and thigh on each of our plates and then spooned on some onions and butternut squash which was cooked until it was so soft it was falling apart! I spooned a little of the liquid over it and then topped it all off with some of those delicious chickpeas! VOILA! 

Now that's what I call comfort food! It might not be what I thought of first but going forward, it will be!