A culinary trip to Morocco

I found a great book while I was wondering around my local library called Tagine: Spicy Stews from Morocco by Ghillie Basan. Since I had some chicken already at home, I checked the cupboards, picked up the remaining ingredients and started to get rolling.

There are a lot of tagines in this book--meat, fish, and chicken--as well as a few complementing side dishes.

I served this with plain couscous and a green salad as suggested. It was wonderful!

I decided to make the tagine listed on page 37: Spicy chicken tagine with apricots, rosemary and ginger.

NOTE: my alterations are noted in the recipe below.

2 tbsp olive oil with a pat of butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1.5 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
3 chicken leg quarters, cut into pieces (6 pieces of chicken)
3/4 cup dried apricots
2 tbsp honey
1 can (28 oz.) plum tomatoes with juice
sea salt and ground black pepper
small bunch of green basil leaves
buttery couscous

Heat the oil and butter in a tagine or heavy casserole dish (I used my cast iron skillet). Stir in onion, rosemary, ginger, red pepper flakes, and saute until onion begins to soften. Stir in the cinnamon stick.

Add chicken pieces and brown on both sides. Toss in apricots with the honey and stir in plum tomatoes with juice. (Add water if needed--cover the base of tagine and submerge apricots). Bring liquid to boil, then reduce heat. Cover with lid and cook gently for 35-40 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Shred the larger basil leaves and leave the small ones intact. Sprinkle them over the chicken and serve immediately.

Buttery couscous (from p.60 of same book)

1.5 cups couscous, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 3/4 cup warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
2 pats butter in small pieces

I put my couscous in a 2 quart glass dish with water and oil. Microwave on high with lid on for four minutes to boiling. Leave couscous sit for at least 10-15 minutes. Add butter to top and serve with tagine when complete.

A quick batch of pot luck cakes

Here's the scenario:

I get home from the grocery store, put everything away, and at 1800, Hubby tells me he needs something for the pot luck dinner at work. Another important thing...make sure it doesn't have to be refrigerated, since that will probably be full of other important stuff.

Hmm...I ask him about what to bring, and thankfully, this site does not assign dishes by last name or anything, so I head to the cookbook and cabinet to see what happens. Since I had all the ingredients on hand, I decided to make an upside down cake.

The recipe below for yellow cake comes from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 2000. I use this cookbook frequently because it has a nice form factor (is small and fits on the shelf I want it on in the kitchen) and it has a lot of fairly basic recipes you can build on easily.

Note: there is a pineapple upside down recipe in this book on page 137, but I use the Yellow Cake one instead for a couple of reasons--it makes two cakes from one batch.

Yellow cake pineapple upside down

Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel (optional)

Note: this cake above will produce enough batter for two cakes (9 inch round cake pans)

Topping

NOTE: items below are per cake--double ingredients below (by type) if making two upside down cakes!

pineapple upside down
1 can pineapple slices
8-10 maraschino cherries (I use 8 --one whole one in the center of each pineapple ring)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup brown sugar

or variation--
apricot upside down
2-15 oz. cans apricot halves
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Grease 2-9 inch round pans with shortening or cooking spray (i.e. Pam).
Place pineapples and cherries in bottom of pan.
Add chopped nuts atop the cherries and pineapples to cover.
Add brown sugar to cover. Pat down if needed.
Set aside.

Combine flour, salt and baking powder in separate bowl.
In large mixing bowl, beat butter or margarine on high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add lemon peel here (optional).
Add eggs one at a time, beating for one minute each.
Add dry mixture and milk, on low speed, slowly until just combined.

Pour batter carefully to cover fruit in each pan. You should have enough batter to cover two cakes.

Bake at 375 degrees F, or until golden and tested with wooden toothpick (comes out clean when poked near center of cake).

Loosen cake around edges of pan and let sit on cooling rack for five minutes. Invert cake onto heat-safe plate and cooling rack and let sit another five minutes. Cake should come out of pan easily.

NOTE: some pineapple or topping may stick to pan. Remove pineapple and/or topping promptly and place back on cake very carefully!

Serve warm or when cooled. Makes approximately 8 servings per cake.

Our results: one pineapple and one apricot upside down cake.