Sneak Peek of My Moroccan Dessert

Have no fear I will bring enough..... but think of oranges *wink*

Tagine Chicken with Couscous

We all know what day of the week this is and it's time for my weekly dose of cooking.  After going over recipes and looking at ingredients, I decided to do a bit of saving on the pockets today and use what I already have at home.  I'm planning on making my version of tagine chicken with couscous.  Recipes are linked below.  Tagine chicken is a street food in Morocco and is normally cooked in a clay pot with a cone lid and served with bread.  I will be using a casserole and serving over couscous instead.  The couscous recipe seems a bit bland so I was going to try dashing it up on my own.  I saw a lot of protein recipes which call for apricots.  Thinking of mixing a little bit within the couscous and garnishing with fresh mint and parsley and maybe some baked almonds.  Pictures to come shortly.  Now for a bit of shopping.  Just have to pick up the main things.

Easy Tagine Chicken

and

Perfect Couscous

UPDATE #1

Ok, ok.  Going to World Market in Pleasanton may have been a mistake after all.  What should have been a trip for preserved lemons (on sale for $5.49) became a baby in a candy store sort of deal.  I saw this lonely tagine pot on the shelf and helped myself to it.  This resulted back to an actual tagine recipe rather than a heavy skillet.

The chicken thighs are officially marinating for the next 3 to 4 hours.  I added the pulp of the preserved lemons to the marinate but could not find the saffron.  Therefore, saffron does not exist in my dish tonight. *sad face*

Since you needed a subscription to essentially view the recipe, I took a very bad picture of it and posted here.  This calls to cook it stove top on low heat but I don't want to jeopardize my tangine pot on the first day (it's not stove top safe according the fine print on the bottom).  So I will be oven cooking it at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes.

Like usual, finished pic of dish will be later on tonight.

UPDATE #2

Getting ready to go into the oven.

Changed the temparature to 425 degrees fahrenheit at 60 minutes since I chose not to cook on stove top first.

Sitting pretty

Final product served over Couscous

Comments and Thoughts:

We definitely thought it tasted really good.  The flavor of the broth, black olives and preserved lemon blended really well.  We all agreed that the marinating process should be longer than 4 hours.  I should not forget to put honey and do a quick fry of the chicken in a skillet.  My friend and I both agreed that the Couscous may have not been the best choice for it.  However, my husband enjoyed it.  He said it's definitely different and to him different is good.  Next round, I shall use pita bread and see how that pairs. 

Introduction to Moroccan Cuisine

Looking at some of the cuisine and dishes of Morocco, I have challenges for the next two dishes I choose to cook.  Prior to diving into the next week of tears, anxiety and a hot oven, I would like to simply link the top 10 foods list of Morocco to give an idea of what is to come.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Top 10 Foods To Try in Morocco

Dessert Dish of South Africa

As my final dish for the southern region of Africa, I will be doing a recreation of Malva Pudding.  Desserts, in my opinion, is not my forte but I'm definitely up for a challenge.

The recipe I am relying on is linked below:

Malva Pudding

An alternative recipe (although it doesn't look that different)

Grandma's Malva Pudding

However, I am, once again substituting things to make things work.  I'm making my own cake flour.  Making cake flour is pretty simple and straight forward.  Take 1 Cup all purpose flour and remove 2 tbsp of that and replace it with 2 tbsp of cornstarch.  To ensure evenness, you would want to sift and transfer mix into another mixing bowl.

Carnation Thick Cream also gave me a bit of problems in my hunt for ingredients.  Ended up at World Market and found it there.  Yes, there is a difference between heavy whipping cream and thick cream.  And from what I had researched, thick cream is an Australian ingredient for desserts.  I, myself, did not even know there was a difference.

Also, take note that there is a difference between vanilla extract and vanilla essence. (so much technicality.... *sigh*)

Brown Vinegar is the same as malt vinegar (in case you wonder)

I will be garnishing my pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

Off to baking and some reading.  Will update with pics and critiques from the "bottomless pit" soon!

Coming Next Week:  Foods of West Africa (will focus on the state of Morocco)!  Stay tuned and happy eating!

**UPDATE**

I had to concede and substitute a few things.  However, wow! It tasted so good....  My son is a picky eater normally and isn't into trying new things majority of the time.  This time around?  I got a smile and "Mommy, is there some more?"!  My husband gets home from work with dinner since I told him I have dessert taken care of.  He takes one bite and says "looks like we are eating backwards today"!  I turn around for not even a couple minutes and he cleaned his share.  I definitely look forward to making this one over again and ordering the ingredients I cannot find here locally.  I'm pretty sure the sauce would have been thicker if I actually used Thick Cream instead of Heavy Whipping Cream.  However, when the sponge cake part of the Malva Pudding started to absorb the heavy cream sauce, literally one bite leads to the inevitable.

Cape Malay Lamb Curry

As of December 2018, the Cape Malay Curry was voted one of South Africa's top ten dishes.  Randomly drawing from a hat, I decided to challenge myself in cooking this dish.  The recipe I had used can be found by clicking on the link below.  I did make some minor changes.

Cape Malay Lamb Curry

Rather than using fresh grated ginger, I had used the powder.  In my opinion, I could not taste the ginger.  I would, however, love to re-make this dish using fresh tomatoes rather than the can.  Allowing the meat to sit in the spices made the spices stick to the meat more.  For those wanting to try cooking this, I suggest adding more spice to the simmer.  Cooking this dish brought unfamiliar smells of spices to our home.  As soon as my husband arrived home from work, he brought out the air purifier.  He said it smells really good but the problem with any type of curry the smell will linger.  He mentioned that walking in, it reminded him of a fusion restaurant that he and his coworkers love to frequent to during lunch breaks in Santa Clara.

According to my friend who joined us for dinner, Michael Igtibin, says that the taste of curry and game like protein is not for everyone.  He enjoyed the meal but said that I could have added a little bit more flavor and that the potatoes could have been cooked a bit more.  (This is why I suggest adding more spice during the simmer process and not just allowing the protein to marinate in the spices alone.)

Upon hearing Michael's opinion, my husband had added more to it.  He had stated that it tasted good compared to most and wants me to make it again.  Knowing my husband, when he says he wants me to make a dish over in the future, I know I had done something right.

Time spent preparing: 15-20 minutes
Time on stove: 50 minutes (probably should have done a full hour)
Money spent: about $60 (lesson learned? stay away from Whole Foods)

Stay tuned for next Sunday: Malva pudding or Melktert?  Which one? Post in comments below.

Exploring The Top 10 Foods in South Africa

My goal is to bring in authentic dishes of the world into our home and somehow attempt to make several of them after this brief introduction.  "Rainbow Cuisine" is where you can find a current list of the Top 10 foods in South Africa. I will be covering the Eastern, Western, and Northern regions as well.  This list was updated in December of 2018 so I'm hoping that I can recreate a dish or two successfully.  Pictures and critique of my Cape Malay curry to follow.  Stay tuned!