Succulent juicy, spiced and aromatic chicken tagine with apricots and preserved lemons.
Make this Moroccan dinner recipe at home and learn how to use a tagine pot.
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What is a Tagine?
Tagine, or also Tajine, is an earthenware clay pot and also the name of a Moroccan meal that is slow-cooked in this traditional cooking utensil.
The Tagine Clay Pot
The clay pot consists of 2 parts.
A flat base rounded at the corners where the dish cooks, and a dome-shaped cover that sits on the lower part during the cooking process which is simply put the lid.
The specially shaped cover serves to circulate the condensation down in the cooking process.
Physics is doing an excellent job by cooking the meat extremely tender on the inside of a tagine.
The Tagine Meal
The tagine meal is a traditional slow-cooked one-pot meal. It's great to serve this to a crowd!
There are a couple of different tagine types, in fact, Moroccan and Tunisian tagines are known to be two totally different dishes.
Since I have little knowledge of the Tunisian tagine, I'll focus more on the Moroccan Tagine dish.
I have tried Mutton Tagine, veg tagine, and chicken tagine in the past and our favorite is definitely the chicken version of this North African dish.
Other versions of this dish may include fish, prune and even oranges.
How to cook it?
Using a tagine is actually quite simple. I'm going to clarify things here!
Find the complete recipe with ingredients and instruction details at the bottom of this post.
Step 1
Marinate chicken and cook in the pan on all sides.
Step 2
Assemble tagine by cooking first onion in oil in the tagine.
Add all the other ingredients including vegetables, dried fruits, chicken, preserved lemon and nuts.
Step 3
Allow the tagine to cook for at least 90 minutes on a slow flame
Turn the chicken and ingredients during the cooking process.
Serve hot when done.
Serving
We love our Moroccan chicken served with fluffy couscous, as it is the norm in Morocco.
Giant Israeli style couscous can be used as a side dish too.
Another idea is to serve your chicken apricot tagine with cooked plain rice or lemon rice or cooked ebly wheat berries.
Sometimes we serve roasted vegetables with our chicken tagine recipes such as potatoes, butternut squash, chickpeas and brussels sprouts.
How to eat it?
To do it the traditional way, move the Tajine clay pot into the center of a table.
The cover is removed and everyone around the table starts to directly dip with three fingers into the warm dish.
The index finger holds a piece of flatbread and the thumb pushes the food onto the bread before eating it all.
The other fingers shouldn't touch the dish!
A while back I had mentioned in the Moroccan Tea experience, that Moroccan people follow traditional food and drink preparations to the T.
Old traditions have been preserved over time and were passed over to the generations.
FAQs
Tagines may include apricots, dates, prunes, almonds, pickled lemons. Aromatic spices such as paprika and cinnamon are added for flavor.
We usually serve white wine or rose with our chicken tagine. A fruity rose makes a great addition. Moroccan wines are surprisingly fruity aromatic and perhaps worth a try with this Morrocan chicken tagine.
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📖 Recipe
Moroccan Chicken Tagine Recipe
Ingredients
For the Seasoning and Chicken:
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- ½ Teaspoon Cumin ground
- ½ Teaspoon Coriander Seeds ground
- ½ Teaspoon Turmeric Ground
- ½ Teaspoon Paprika Powder
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 4 Chicken Legs
- 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil 1 for marination + 1 for cooking
To assemble Tagine:
- 2 Tomato quartered
- 1 Potato roughly diced
- 2 small Carrot sliced
- 4 Preserved Whole Lemons *See Notes for substitution
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 2 Onion sliced
- 5 Garlic Cloves chopped
- ½ inch Ginger chopped
- 5.3 ounces Dried Prunes or Apricots
- 5.3 ounces Presoaked Raisins (just keep raisin in water for 30 minutes and strain)
- 1 Tabespoons Honey
- 5.3 ounces Almonds
- 2 Bay leaves
Instructions
For the Seasoning and Chicken:
- Combine salt, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric, paprika and black pepper.
- Place chicken legs into a large bowl, season with the spice blend and sprinkle olive oil over chicken.
- Mix to coat the chicken legs with the spice blend and olive oil. Keep marinating for 10 mins at least.
- Heat up a pan with olive oil and place chicken legs into the hot pan.
- Cook chicken on al sides just so that the chicken gets some color. Take out and keep aside.
To assemble Tagine:
- Prepare and cut potato, tomato, and carrot. Slice preserved lemons. Keep aside.
- Place tagine bottom part on the stove and pour olive oil in.
- Throw in sliced onions and saute for a minute or two.
- Add ginger and garlic chopped to the tagine.
- Assemble the tagine by adding the cut potato, tomato and carrot.
- Add dried prunes or apricots to the tagine, as well as previously soaked raisins (without the water). Mix everything while it's all slowly cooking on super slow heat.
- Place chicken into tagine and don't forget to add some honey over the vegetables.
- Spread sliced lemon over the chicken, as well as the almonds.
- Stick the bay leaves in between the ingredients in the tagine and cover the tagine with the lid.
- The tagine needs to cook for at least 90 minutes over slow heat. Open it once or twice during the cooking process and turn the chicken and ingredients a bit.
- Serve hot when done.
Notes
- If you can't get whole preserved lemons use 2 teaspoon Lemon juice instead
- You can use apricots or prunes or even both mixed.
- Never add water to the tagine. The liquid that oyu see in the video at the end came from the vegetables.
I've always wanted to try tajine! You make it look so easy, Helene 🙂
Every time I go to a home ware store I stand there and look at tagine. I can not decide whether I should buy or not. After looking at your step by step recipe I think I should buy one. It looks delicious!
I've never made anything in a Tajiine but I have eaten food made in one and it was delicious! I love this dish! I bet the raisins and prunes create such a sweet and tasty sauce. So Good!
My husband and I have had several tajine dishes in the past year and absolutely love them. It's definitely a dish I want to add to our kitchen someday. This looks delicious!
Hubby and I finally bought a tajine a few months back. We are always looking for recipes, and we love creating fun new recipes in our fun new toy:-) Your recipe sounds wonderful as the temperature starts to cool off, perfect comfort food:-) Hugs, Terra
I've never had Tajine before but saw on blogs maybe a few times (3-4 times). I've never known how to eat it too, so it was fun to read. I have a lot to learn about North African recipes, and I saw tajine in a Japanese kitchen store the other day. I should go back to get it! Thanks for sharing this special recipe Helene!
just looks amazing. SO flavorful and I love how comforting it sounds
This looks like a wholesome and delicious dish. I have a Moroccan neighbor from who I am asking for this recipe. Now I shall just try yours.
Looks so good!
What a great recipe and post Helene! I love that this is your family's recipe. North Afriacan cuisine is so delicious and I'm always interested in trying new recipes. Thanks for sharing:)
As always, another tasty dish & interesting post. I find the tagine style of cooking very interesting, but haven't been brave enough to try it yet 🙂
A beautiful tajine! So scrumptious looking. That is a speciality I adore (I love Moroccan food).
Cheers,
Rosa
From the Land Down Under: I personally have loved N African cuisine for many years: and I have never owned a proper taginier! Cook it very naturally 2-3 x/week! This is a lovely recipe: thank you! May I possibly suggest that the Tunisian varieties of the dish may be the most delicate and satisfying of all. After all, Berber and Persian cooking styles are now regarded as the most 'artistic' in any form of world cooking. Personally, I'm learning Ethiopian ways every week [may I suggest Burmese as second choice?!] and that is not so far affoot 😀 !
I am keen to learn more about African cuisine as well, there are for sure many dishes out there that I dont know yet, especially form central Africa. You seem to have a good knowledge around African food Eha. =)
Your tagine looks simply decadent and delicious my friend, one of the best north African dishes 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I bought my mom a gorgeous tagine for Christmas one year...it sits in my parents' dining room, but I don't think it's ever been used! I may need to "borrow" it for a test run...what a delectable recipe 🙂
Ah such a pity! They do look very pretty though. The one in my picture is very simple, but the traditional ones are painted and so gorgeous. Have fun "borrowing" your parents Tajine! 😉
I've wanted a tajine for ages... I just adore all the wonderful things you can do with them. Such vibrant, colourful dishes. Sadly it's going to have to be one of those things that waits until I buy a house one day - don't really have the space for it right now, haha 🙂
Yeah I know what you mean, I am kind of facing the same problem. The tajin in this picture is my mothers, she got it from her sisters, who has 4 big tajine eaters in her house. She needed a bigger one so she gave my mum that one, otherwise there is no way to get a tajine in Austria where we live.
lovely pictures and post
What a lovely dish, and it takes me right back to our vacation in Morocco last November where we ate many a Tajine dishes. We even learned to cook chicken tajine and lamb tajine at two different cooking schools! And our beautiful hotel manager was kind enough to gift us with a lovely traditional tajine. We have used it often, but we eat with cutlery!
hehe... We eat it with cutlery in Europe too. But if I had a tajine in Goa, I d eat it with some flat bread/with the hands. Its always weird to eat with hands in Europe. Everyone looks at me like I was mad when I try to do that. In India its totally normal.
Lucky you! I d love to visit this mysterious country one day. Everyone is telling me tales of Marakesh. I bet you learned some really good tricks there, cooking tajines. =)
Nice recipe! As a former Casablancaise, I would love to know about your family's connection to Moroccan cuisine. Actually, a tagine is a one-dish meal, no need for anything else to serve with it, except bread. My Moroccan cookbooks contain dozens of recipes for sweet or savory tagines of meat, fish, fowl, and vegetables. You can substitute a slow cooker for the tagine dish. Bismillah and bon appetit,
Hi there!
A couple of my 20+ cousins are living with Moroccan descendants in France, so family festivities are always colorful and multi cultural. =) Yeah for sure its a one dish meal, but I for once enjoy it with Couscous and there are others as well. Oh I would love to learn new Tajine recipes, its too good! Thanks for your tips, they will come handy! 😉
I have never tried North African food before but sure have seen tv programs, esp on how to use the Tajine. I like all the ingredients you have used into the recipe, esp the spices and if I make this home, everyone will go gaga.
It reminds me a bit of Indian food. Mostly because of the spices such as Turmeric and Cinnamon. You really should try the recipe, I bet you will get addicted to it!