Moroccan Chicken

Its been a while since we featured a Moroccan Recipe so we thought it was time to create a new recipe. This is a very simple recipe that takes less than an hour to prepare and only needs some simple ingredients. Your biggest flavour comes from Ras El Hanout which is a popular blend of moroccan spices (you can get this in most supermarkets). Ras El Hanout mainly smells like cinnamon with nutmeg with a variety of other flavours.

 

If you don’t have Ras El Hanout simply use a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cumin, ground coriander, cayenne pepper and some cloves if you have some. So down to the cooking. All you need are some chicken breasts (or any other cuts of chicken you like), marinade them in the Ras El Hanout spices and olive oil, then fry this to seal in the flavours. After that you make a slightly sweet & savoury tomato sauce, add the chicken and simmer.

The sauce has an exotic flavour because of the spices, but has a background sweetness brought out by the apricot jam which really brings out the flavours.  As always you control the amount of chilli according to your taste buds. We served this with some simply steamed cous cous.

You can add all sorts of vegetables to accompany this dish including chickpeas, but in this case we just had chicken. Remember this is a quick recipe so there was no messing about with a tagine. It was done in a wok and ready in less than an hour!

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Ingredients

For the chicken Marinade

• 2-3 tsp Ras El Hanout Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 medium chicken breasts

For the Sauce

• 1 Medium Onion, sliced
• 1 tsp garlic puree or 2 cloves fresh garlic
• 1/2 tsp Ras El Hanout seasoning
• 1 tsp tomato puree
• 1 medium fresh tomato, chopped
• 1/2 glass Marsala wine
• 5-6 dried apricots, chopped
• 1 tsp apricot jam
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup tinned tomatoes (pureed) or Passata
• Fresh coriander to garnish
• salt & pepper to taste

Method

• Start by cutting the chicken breasts into strips.
• Marinade them in a bowl with the marinade ingredients and about 2 tbsp vegetable oil.

• Heat the wok until very hot then fry the chicken for around 3-4 minutes until golden and browned.
• Remove the chicken from the wok and set aside.

• In the same wok add 1 tbsp oil and fry the onions on a low heat until caramelised, about 5 minutes.
• Add the garlic and and cook for a further 1 minute.
• Add the 1/2 tsp Ras El Hanout and fry for 1 minute to release the aromas.
• Add the tomato puree and fry for a further 1 minute.
• Add the Marsala wine and allow to evaporate (high heat) for 1 minute.

• Add the chicken stock and remaining ingredients as well as the chicken.
• Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has thickened.

• Taste for seasoning and add more salt/pepper as required.
• Add the fresh coriander, stir through for a minute.
• Serve with cous cous and top with toasted almonds.

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