Saffron and Salt

Moroccan night started off like any other. I began to gather my ingredients and prep the things that needed to be prepped. To make the rub for the chicken, I ground some toasted saffron sprigs and coarse sea salt into a fine powder in my mortar and pestle.

That, along with some ground ginger, turmeric and chopped parsley made the dry rub complete so I slathered my chicken pieces with ghee, a clarified butter that can be purchased in the international aisle of most supermarkets. I then rubbed them with the spice mixture and set to readying my tagine for the cooking process.

I put the chicken in the tagine, along with the pulp of a preserved lemon and some sliced onions, and turned the heat on. Not more than 3 minutes had gone by when I heard a loud pop, and then found a piece of red ceramic halfway across my kitchen. You wonder what's going on? Yea, so did I. Turns out, my tagine was cracking from the bottom up, and fast. Of course, I started to yell, and started flailing around the kitchen in an attempt to save my dinner! I grabbed another pot, transferred the chicken and onions, and set them to continue cooking over another burner while I tended to "the situation." By the time the tagine had cooled, and I had wiped it clean, pieces had started to fall out of the center of the dish.

               

I stopped taking pictures at this point because I was a bit flustered. Needless to say, the chicken continued to cook, the chickpeas were added, and cooked. The last thing added was just an ounce of rice...I can't really explain the necessity for this ingredient, but at this point, I was just following instructions.

The finished product was a rich and hearty stew of chicken, chickpeas and melting onions with a lemony-saffron sauce that was really satisfying. I served it with some couscous instead of the tomato dish that I had originally planned on in the Current Menu. After the "tagine incident," I figured it best to just go the straightforward and easy route! I'm still the hero though, for I SAVED DINNER! 

A Mountain of Acorn Squash and a Tagine

Last night, I came home to a few packages that I'd been expecting in the mail! I was delighted to see that my tagine had finally arrived. A tagine is an earthenware dish that is used to cook many Moroccan and Tunisian dishes, but originated in the cuisine of Cyprus. It consists of a bowl-like dish, as well as a conical cover, that allows for an interesting way to slow-cook stews, braised at low temperatures. I found a great deal on this one, at One Kings Lane, plus I had a voucher allowing me to spend $70 at the cost of $35. So, I got a really good deal! I can't wait to use it on some dishes from a Moroccan cookbook that I purchased when Borders was going out of business.

Look at the pretty, red color! It matches my Emile Henry dutch oven too! :)

Now, my other delivery was very heavy, and at first I couldn't imagine what it was. I remembered that a few days ago, I had used another discount voucher to purchase some fresh produce from MyFreshMaine, an online farmer's market of sorts. The shipping was a bit pricy, so I didn't order as many things as I had originally wanted. I placed an order for 3 4-lb acorn squash. Well, either the squash are smaller, or they misread my order, because I received about 9 of them! I just kept finding more of them among the styrofoam peanuts. This means that we're going to be a bit squashed out, but hey - I have a few recipes I'd like to try!

The best part about these two shipments is that they go very well together! Moroccan dishes use a lot of vegetables in the stews, and squash, cooked slowly, adds lovely texture to a stew! A few of these acorn squash will definitely be used to experiment in the tagine, while I'm thinking I'd like to try stuffing the rest of them. Maybe some quinoa, and veggies, and some cheese. I could even freeze a few halves for quick weeknight meals in the not-to-distant future.

What are your favorite acorn squash recipes? If you don't have a favorite, do you have a recipe you've been meaning to try, but haven't got around to yet? Send it in and we can try it together!

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!