Cape Town - It’s one of the first choices you have to make as a growing boy – are you a leg or a breast man? It’s a pity to have to choose, I always thought. Can’t you have the best of both worlds? Do we have to be so dull that we can have one or the other, but God help you if you fancy both? And what about the thigh? Does it have to be the entire leg? What if you have a penchant for a nicely turned thigh but couldn’t be bothered with the scrawny lower leg? I mean, face it, there’s not much to recommend the calf, is there? Not much meat on it, nothing to get a grip on.
Okay, the thigh is a part of the leg, so by owning up to being a leg man, that’s pretty much what you’re implying. Unless you really do get turned on by a drumstick. I’ve never really seen the point of them. The meat on the thigh – you did know I was talking about chickens? – is succulent, always soft, and has more flavour than the breast, which takes on flavour but if cooked plain has little merit.
Even the skin on the thigh is somehow crispier than the scrawny bit covering the breast. I like to cook thighs in an oven pan with vegetables that roast with them at the same time, with garlic cloves and sprigs of herbs, a drizzling of lemon juice and olive oil. Half an hour is generally enough for all that, and if you use harder vegetables such as carrots and potatoes, which take a little longer to cook, just steam them for five or 10 minutes before roasting. Pop it all in a hot oven, seasoned with salt and pepper and maybe a sprinkling of paprika, and there’s a quick family meal all done and dusted in an hour. Baby potatoes, halved, are really good in there, and a scattering of olives lends it a Spanish touch.
I do sometimes use chicken breasts, especially when the budget is tight – breasts are cheaper than other cuts – but cut the breast in half down the middle to make for smaller chunks. They roast beautifully, taking on the flavour of the garlic and herbs. Don’t overcook them though as they’ll dry out.
I love the versatility of chicken. I don’t think there’s anything quite as variable in the kitchen as the ubiquitous fowl, whether roasted whole, cooked in pieces in a curry or a breast deboned, flattened and stuffed with something to add the flavour it lacks.
And it’s great in a tagine, too, whenever I remind myself that my beloved lamb is fatty and not the healthiest of meats and that I must try to eschew it more often.
I hadn’t used my tagine for ages, so I got it out this week and perused menu ideas in the way that I sometimes do, taking something from one recipe and something else from another.
My old blue ceramic tagine bought at a French market in the south of England bit the dust a long time ago, but was replaced by a Christmas gift a couple of years ago – a Le Creuset one with a heavy iron base and a ceramic conical lid. This allows for slow cooking on heat well distributed at a low temperature. The juices collect within the lid and are then returned to the food simmering below.
The ingredients for a tagine can be greatly varied, but if you want to be reasonably traditional try to use the basic ingredients of cumin, ginger, garlic and perhaps turmeric with others such as cinnamon, sweet paprika (Spanish smoked paprika is lovely but will swamp the other spices and potentially spoil its “Moroccan” flavour) and olive oil.
I spotted one recipe that requires you to first marinate the chicken pieces in Greek yoghurt into which you have stirred spices, olive oil, chopped coriander leaves and garlic. The recipe was almost north Indian in a way, but stewed in a tagine rather than being fired in a tandoor on skewers. I ran up a recipe based on the same idea and made it this week.
Chicken and yoghurt tagine with couscous
800g chicken –- a combination of thighs (bone in but skin removed) and filleted breasts
200g Greek yoghurt
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
3 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp paprika
1/2 cup coriander leaves, chopped
4 tbs olive oil
600ml beef stock (use a cube dissolved in water if you must, but I prefer Nomu’s liquid stocks called “fonds”)
1 cup ripe Italian baby tomatoes, halved
Couscous to serve (made according to the packet directions)
Pour the yoghurt into a large bowl and add 2 tsp each of the ground cumin, ginger and paprika, two-thirds of the coriander, two of the chopped garlic cloves, 2 tbs of the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Add the chicken pieces and toss well so that everything is covered. Leave it to marinate at room temperature for up to an hour.
Heat the other 2 tbs of olive oil in the lower part of the tagine on a low heat. Bring the heat up to moderate and add the chopped onion and the rest of the garlic and spices. Stir until the onion softens, then add the chicken pieces a few at a time and cook for five minutes or more, removing them till you’ve cooked the rest. When they’re all done, add the tomatoes and the beef stock and bring to a boil; then reduce and simmer, covered with the lid, for about half an hour until the chicken is tender. Top the served dish with coriander leaves. - Weekend Argus