The marriage of the spices favoured in Moroccan cuisine with honey creates a bit of sorcery in a tagine. A chicken tagine recipe needs fruit, and dates are the perfect fruity ingredient for a spiced chicken dish.
This turned out exquisitely; easily the best chicken tagine dish I’ve made (he says with all due humility, promise). Just a few tricks to bear in mind: the skins of the chicken thighs must be removed as they’d become soggy and horrible while cooking; the sweetness and spiciness need to be balanced, and browning the flour-seasoned chicken pieces to begin with makes a massive difference to the quality of the outcome.
Though I did cook it in a tagine, it can just as well be made in a heavy casserole of some kind. I have one of those Le Creuset ones with a heavy cast-iron base and a conical stoneware lid, my blue ceramic tagine having broken years ago. I had bought it at the annual French market that comes to the south of England every December, a real beauty. We’d also buy tins of pâté de foie gras and other French delights as a Christmas time treat during our Chichester years.
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
