It was almost a year ago that Mr. AT and I went to Morocco on vacation. I learned a few valuable things while there.
- Beware of eating from Marrakesh food stands, lest you be sick for months thereafter. I do not exaggerate when I say months.
- Morocco is one of those countries where the American restaurants serving their cuisine are often tastier than the real thing. Sad but true, I had more forgettable or outright bad meals there than amazing ones. See point 1.
- Cooking with fruit makes everything tastier. When Moroccan food was good, it was almost always because the dates, prunes and apricots slow-cooked in tajines were so sweet and bursting with flavor.
Alas, after 10 days of eating from menus that rarely varied (every place seems to have a nearly identical menu of a few cous cous dishes, a few tajine dishes and a pastilla), I was in no mood to eat Moroccan food for a long, long time. Fast forward to now, and I'm finally ready to enjoy the slow-cooked and spice-infused joys of this North African cuisine once again. Enter a Food and Wine roasted chicken recipe I'd been saving for ages - Moroccan roasted chicken with dates and apricots. Oh the joy!
This recipe requires little effort, but a bit of time - it's 70 minutes of total oven time but no significant chopping or advance prep work. Simply quarter an onion, peel some garlic, throw in your fruits and rub a spiced butter all over the chicken and voila - an hour and change later you have an unbelievably juicy chicken, heavenly fruits roasted to sweet perfection and the intoxicating aromas of cinnamon, coriander and cumin.
This dish is quite simply bliss. It's enough to make a gal forget debilitating food poisoning, and that's really saying something. It's simultaneously hearty and haute, the kind of thing that will impress everyone.
Make this chicken now. I'm serious, put down what you're doing and make this chicken. You won't be disappointed!
I serve this over a 5-minute pine nut cous cous. Even after the chicken was gone, the fruit filled jus and cous cous made for an amazing day after lunch.
