Spicy Chicken Tagine with Apricots, Rosemary and Ginger

Being a huge lover of, particularly, Lebanese and Moroccan food, I decided to treat myself to a tagine as a Christmas present to myself. I also ordered a small cookbook to get started. I tried this recipe when given the first opportunity and it was very tasty and extremely easy!

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil with a knob of butter
• 1 onion finely chopped3 sprigs of rosemary
• 40 g fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1-2 cinnamon sticks8 chicken thighs (bone in)
• 175 g ready-to-eat dried apricots
• 2 tablespoons clear honey
• 400 g can of plum tomatoessea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Small bunch of basil leaves

Optional: I added a can of chickpeas as I happen to love pulses and could probably add chickpeas to most everything I make :-).

Method:

Heat the oil and butter in a tagine or heavy-based casserole dish. Stir in the onion, rosemary, ginger and chillies and saute until the onion begins to soften. Add the cinnamon sticks. Add the chicken thighs and brown them on both sides. Toss in the apricots with the honey, then stir in the plum tomatoes with their juice (Add a little water if necessary to ensure there’s enough liquid to cover the base of the tagine and submerge the apricots). Bring the liquid to boil, then reduce the heat. Cover with lid and cook gently for (at least!) 45 minutes. (I cooked even longer than that which resulted in the chicken just falling off the bone when I picked it up. Yum!)

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Shred basil leaves on sprinkle over the chicken. Serve immediately with couscous or just flatbread.

TIP! A terracotta tagine is fine to cook on the stove or in the oven. If used on the stove, like in this recipe, make sure to use it with a heat diffuser to ensure even temperature and to keep the tagine from cracking from too much concentrated heat.