Moroccan Chicken with Apricots and Almonds Recipe

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With winter weather, many enjoy cooking good dishes to share with family or friends. This sweet and savory recipe of oven-baked chicken tagine with apricot and almond is particularly appreciated and often made. This is a favorite recipe that is easy to make and tastes like you’ve been slaving away in the kitchen for hours.

Aromatic and fragrant, a tagine is a North African dish, named as such because of the vessel in which it’s cooked. This ancient dish can be made in a variety of ways, with a variety of ingredients, but many include preserved lemons, olives, and almonds.

You don’t necessarily need a tagine to make a chicken tagine (you could also use a Dutch oven) but there’s something special about cooking with a tagine. The conical design keeps moisture inside and ensures that the chicken will be continually basted by the condensation that forms along the walls of the cooking vessel.

This chicken tagine is a much-loved North-African stew made with chicken slow-cooked with spices, dried fruit, and nuts. Aromatic and flavorful, this stew is perfect for a festive meal! With a deep love for spices, it naturally follows that Moroccan food would rank high up among some of favorite cuisines. Tagines are perhaps some of the more popularly known dishes from this region. And for good reason!

Ingredients Needed

What ingredients do you need to make this delicious chicken, apricot and almond tagine recipe?

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  • Chicken
  • Onions and garlic
  • Dried apricots (and/or prunes)
  • Almonds
  • Vegetable or poultry stock cube
  • Brown sugar or honey
  • Cinnamon and cumin
  • Olive oil
  • Pepper

Full List of Ingredients:

  • 4 chicken legs or breasts (about 400 g)
  • 20 g butter
  • 2 onions finely chopped
  • 250 g dried apricots
  • 50 g almonds
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 20 cl water
  • Fresh coriander chopped

Quarantine Cooking with Carolyn Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds

Instructions

Here are the steps to make this delightful dish:

  1. Peel and thinly slice the onions.
  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat, add the onions and cook over low heat, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir from time to time.
  3. They should be translucent. Remove and set aside in a bowl.
  4. In the same pan, add olive oil to brown the chicken on all sides (cut into pieces if using white meat).
  5. In a tagine dish, place the chicken in the bottom with the onions. Add salt and pepper, spices and brown sugar or honey. Pour the water on top.
  6. Add the apricots and place your tagine dish in your cold oven.
  7. Then heat your oven to 170°C. The goal is not to break your dish with a strong heat contrast.

Alternative Cooking Methods

Tagines are traditionally prepared in a terracotta conical pot that traps the heat in and provides a moist environment by trapping the steam that cooks the food evenly inside. You can also use these alternative methods:

  • Instant Pot: Use the Slow Cook mode for 1.5 hours.
  • Slow Cooker: Simply use a slow cooker.
  • Stovetop: Cook in a wide skillet or heavy-bottom pot.

Recipe Variations

This is an easy recipe to customize. For that characteristic balance of sweet and sour, you can use any of the following ingredients:

  • Honey
  • Dates
  • Raisins
  • Preserved Lemons
  • Olives

Serving Suggestions

To serve this chicken, it can be served in different ways:

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  • Simply with semolina or a little bulgur
  • With a flatbread
  • Sprinkle with a little chopped fresh coriander or flat leaf parsley

This recipe is another great one to make a double quantity of and save the rest for the next day, or stash in the freezer for a quick and easy ready meal sometime in the future.

To drink with this, consider a zingy Sauvignon Blanc or a Grenache based rose from the South of France or Spain (where Grenache is called Garnacha).

Tips for the Best Chicken Tagine

  • Use Bone-In, Skin-On Chicken: While you can easily use boneless chicken to make it easier for children to eat, it is recommended to use bone-in, skin-on chicken legs and thighs. The bone-in pieces give the sauce more flavor.
  • Brown the Chicken: The skin is browned at the beginning to give it an extra depth of flavor.
  • Slow-Cooking: Tagines are traditionally slow-cooked to get those flavors to blend well together. Please don't rush this recipe and pressure cook it!

Tagine vs. Curry

Although the process of making both a tagine curry are quite similar, the two are quite different. A tagine is a typical North African meal and curries are originally made in India. The tagine refers to both the conical vessel used to make the dish and the stew itself. The spices used in making curries are also different from the ones used to make tagines. There is no turmeric used in tagines, for example, which many curries (not all!) use turmeric.

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tags: #Moroccan