Chicken Smothered with Tomato Jam

Page 289

Cuisine: Moroccan/Algerian/Tunisian | Course Type: Main Courses

(1 review)

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Tags: tomato magic

Recipe Review

Delicious! The meat was tender, juicy and flavourful, glazed with a complex and intensely flavoured tomato sauce sweetened with honey. The sesame seed garnish was pretty but too subtle in flavour to have any impact.

The prep time of the chicken was minimal. First, the meat was marinated overnight in garlic, saffron water and spices. Next day, it was combined with grated onion and more herbs and spices. The chicken was then cooked in stages for 1 hour.

This was the first tagine recipe from this book where I had timing issues. It takes a long time for my tagine to heat up, so the first 20 minutes of cooking on low heat merely heated the vessel without having any effect on the contents. The cooking actually started during the next 20 minutes over med. heat. All of the liquid cooked off and the chicken was frying! Though the instructions say to continue cooking over medium heat after the tomatoes (I used canned San Marzano instead of fresh) and tomato magic (Page 41) are added, I lowered the heat and maintained the simmer for 20 min. I wish there were some description of what we are looking for: barely a simmer, vigourous boil.....20 min. on medium heat in different pots on different stoves yields vastly different results. Once done, the chicken was removed and the sauce reduced for 1 hour.

The dish required a little more attention and a lot more time than I expected - I do wish the recipes included notes on total prep and cooking times - so I prepared a simple couscous side using the instructions on pages 202-203, another 1 hour+ process.

My one complaint about the dish was that it was oily...I ended up skimming fat as the sauce reduced. Next time, I'll remove the chicken skin as it seemed to be the main culprit.

(3) useful  

Comments

Queezle_Sister - 7th March 2012
What a nice review! I've been eyeballing this recipe, and wondering about using tomato jam I prepared last summer. Glad to see that I can simply use a can (though I detest cans, those San Marzano tomatoes are very good).

I'm also having a lot of timing issues. I fear injuring my tagine, and agree that it takes a long time for the vessel to warm up. What was your over-all cooking time? I'll start to note it in my reviews - it is so discouraging to have dinner not be ready till 10 pm!

Zosia - 8th March 2012
Queezle Sister, it looks like it took 2 hrs from start to finish keeping in mind that my chicken pieces were slightly smaller than recommended and the canned tomatoes weighed ~2lbs, not 2.5.
The breakdown is as follows: 20 min on low heat; 5 min to slowly raise temp to med; 20 min at med; 5 min at med with tomatoes (they were boiling and spitting so I reduced the heat); 20 min at med-low and the chicken was done; 50 min on low to reduce the tomatoes.
The tomatoes would have reduced faster at the higher temp but I was playing with couscous at the same time and wanted to serve them together.

Queezle_Sister - 8th March 2012
Great information! 2 hours isn't too bad. All week I've been trying to make the meat+7 veg tagine, but it looks to be a 3 1/2 hour job.
thanks!

Zosia - 9th March 2012
I'll wait for your review before I try that recipe : )

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