I’m pleased to announce that, with the exception of a few weirdly chilly days, spring seems to finally have sprung here in New York. Sunday was not warm, but the sun was out, and we bundled up to christen the grill for the 2018 season. For the first time since moving into this apartment back in 2016, we properly stored the grill for winter, so when we unveiled it we were relieved (and proud) to find there was no rust in sight, and we were pretty much ready to roll. The only tiny issue was the lack of burnable paper for the chimney, which necessitated that I steal a neighbor’s Sunday New York Times (thank you and sorry, #3A!).
The first thing I grilled was a pile of the usual vegetables you find cooked over charcoal- strips of eggplant, zucchini and bell pepper. I sliced them up to make a Mediterranean salad with pearled barley, parsley, cilantro, pistachios, feta, chiles and scallions all topped with a dressing seasoned with coriander and cumin. I intend to eat it for lunch this week. I’m not exactly sure why, but early spring has me in a deep Mediterranean / Middle Eastern cooking phase- I find myself coming home from the grocery store with the same key ingredients week after week.
This tagine is obviously not something I made on the grill- quite the opposite, really. Rather than being quickly cooked over hot coals, it’s slowly broken down over the course of several hours on a low-heat stovetop. It’s very intensely flavored with the taste of the preserved- specifically, lemons and olives- and is rich and briny. Served alongside something a bit fresh and bright, it’s a true showstopper and the perfect dinner dish for guests, if you ask me.
Speaking of guests, my loose 2018 resolution is “entertain more.” More dinner parties, more party-parties, more last-minute friends stopping by for whatever I happen to be throwing together and a bottle of wine consumed outside on a sweaty summer evening. To pull this off, you need a few recipes (and pantry ingredients) up your sleeve, and this is one such standby. Bon appetit!
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 3 1/2 tablespoons butter
- 2 large onions, roughly diced
- 4 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 8 large bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed
- Pinch of saffron threads
- 2 teaspoons boiling water
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 7 oz. green olives, pitted
- 6 preserved lemons, halved or sliced
- 1 3/4-oz. bunch of flat leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
Instructions
- Heat a good drizzle of olive oil with the butter in a large saucepan set over medium heat. Add the onions and fry for a couple of minutes, then add the garlic slices and dry spices and mix well. Put in the chicken thighs and cook them for about 5 minutes on each side to seal them.
- Grind the saffron with a mortar and pestle, then pour over the boiling water to infuse for a minute or two. Add the saffron water to the chicken and season with a generous amount of sea salt and black pepper. Pour in just enough water to barely cover the thighs, cover the pan with a lid and cook for 2 hours.
- After the cooking time has elapsed, add the olives and preserved lemon slices and stir, then cover and cook for a further 15 minutes. Remove the tagine from the heat, add the roughly chopped parsley and serve. You can serve this with couscous (though not traditional), rice, potatoes or bread.
Notes
From Persiana
