Chicken Tangine

For Christmas, Ed got me a whole bunch of spices. Some of them were just normal spices, since we'd been running out anyway, but some were new and exciting! We now have things like Za'atar, preserved lemons, ancho chiles, two kinds of curry powders, whole vanilla beans, mustard seeds, tarragon... the list goes on. Anyway, having all sorts of exciting spices makes me want to try out all sorts of new and exciting dishes, and the preserved lemons put chicken tangine into my head as something to try. It ended up being absolutely delicious, although I shouldn't have doubled every spice in the recipe... it didn't look flavorful enough, but yeah, I overdid it a bit. The recipe below has the original amount of spices.

Chicken Tangine

Made enough for five

1 pack of chicken legs (8 legs?)

1 bunch of collard greens

Olive oil, as needed

1 red onion

2 tbs minced fresh ginger

5 cloves minced fresh garlic

1 preserved lemon

2" piece of cinnamon

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

2C stock

4 whole green cardamom pods

2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste

1/2 tsp grains of paradise (or black pepper)

1/4tsp ground turmeric

1/4tsp ground nutmet

1/4tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 325F.

In a heavy dutch oven type dish, heat the olive oil and start browning the chicken legs. I took off all the skin, first. In a separate frying pan, begin to sweat the onions in some olive oil and a little salt, with the stick of cinnamon. You could use the dutch oven for everything, to cut down on dishes, but that would have taken too long.

Onions in.

10-15min later, they were getting nicely caramelized.

Toast the ground spices, and ginger and garlic, in either the dutch oven or frying pan, whichever has finished its task of browning things first. Toast the spices for 5 minutes or so, and then add the chicken back in and toss everything around to coat.

Add the collards (rinsed and chopped), and the preserved lemon, and then cover with stock. If that isn't enough liquid, add more water, until the chicken is mostly covered. Bring everything to a simmer in the dutch oven, and cook for 3-4 minutes, and then transfer to the oven for 1-1.5hrs. The liquid will reduce, and the meat will fall off the bones. It is utter deliciousness. Let it rest for 10 minutes, try to find the piece of cinnamon and the cardamom pods, and serve over rice.