Double Feature weekend - Chicken Tagine and Tiramisu..

Wow, what weekend of great food and cooking! Marty definitely got his groove back and decided to cook up a storm on Sunday! Chicken, Olive and Preserved Lemon Tagine followed by Tiramisu. I will say right up front I have never been a Tiramisu fan, but this one was unbelievably good. Not too heavy, beautiful flavours and quite simply to die for. The Chicken Tagine however I feel needs some work and a couple of adjustments, but to that later!

Before I go any further, here is the link for the Tiramisu recipe - because you have to go and try it: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/other-recipes/best-tiramisu. I'll run you through the tagine recipe, and also let you know what would be the variations we'd do now. I think after the Beef tagine was such a success, I expected the same from this dish. Not that it wasn't, it just wasn't what I'd been expecting. In most Moroccan dishes there's this beautiful balance of sweet and savoury and spicy, as was the beef with the prunes and the Moroccan spices. This one was much saltier - should have guessed it by the name I suppose - and there are are definite things that can be done the next time we make this - because there will be a next time - to improve on this first experience and make it a dish to remember. I've learnt from Marty that the most important thing about cooking is a little experimentation, and when you're trying something new and it doesn't work, it's best not to give up, but tweak and adjust because that's where a beautiful dish can come from. I mean, Jamie does is a cookbook all about tweaking and updating traditional recipes!

The first step in the tagine is the preparation of the chicken.To serve 4-6 the recipe calls for a whole chicken, skin-on and jointed into 4. The butcher would be able to do it, but you can generally buy it like this in a 'barbeque' style pack. Then you need to prepare a rub for the chicken to marinate in consisting of:

• 1 heaped tsp coriander seeds, bashed up
• 1 level tsp ground cumin
• 1 heaped tsp ground ginger
• 2 tbs olive oil
• seal salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mix all of this together, put the chicken pieces into a large bowl and massage the rub into the chook, cover and allow to marinate for a couple of hours or preferably overnight.

When it's time to cook, you're going to brown the chicken in your casserole pot/tagine, and while that's happening you want to chop a fennel bulb into 8, chop a couple of onions, and get a good sized bunch of fresh coriander and cut the stalks off. That's the part you want to use. You can add these to the mix once that chicken is deliciously golden brown and mix around. Now here comes the exoticness! A good pinch of saffron, about 80gm of stoned black and green olives (1st bit of salt) and a preserved lemon, chopped up. 1 if it's homemade, 2 if it's store bought. Add about 500ml of hot stock, chicken and preferably organic, cover and simmer on a low heat for about and 1 and a half. It was more like 2 in the end. Keep an eye out and give it an occasional stir. Add water if it's starting to look dry, and if, when the chicken's cooked and it looks a little bit liquidy, let it blip away with the lid off for a little to thicken slightly (Jamie's words not mine! but it accurately describes the sound it makes!)

Serve with steaming couscous and a sprinkle of coriander leaves. It is such a simple delicious dish. However, whether it was the combination of cooking a little longer, preserved lemons being strong or the added olives I found it overwhelmingly salty. The lemons are preserved with salt - another subject for another post- so they have a lot going on already, and I did our homemade ones Marty's way without adding the cinnamon and bay leaves which would have helped to soften the flavour. They've also been preserving for about 3 months now so they're pungent. Next time I would only use half or a quarter instead of 1 for a more subtle taste. the olives themselves where salty, so the 3 variations I can see in the future are:
1. No lemons
2. No olives
3. No olives or lemons.

I'll get back to you on what combination worked best. I think that by halving the lemon and maybe the same for the olives will allow the rest of the dish to work without being overwhelmed by these strong flavours.

I have no variations for you on the Tiramisu, only to say it was simple to make - I helped with some of it, and absolutely delicious. the added egg whites to the mascapone meant that it wasn't a thick, heavy dessert and it wasn't overwhelmed with coffee and cream. I used freshly ground and percolated coffee as opposed to instant coffee and it made a lot of difference to a smooth and subtle taste.

Looking forward to hearing how it went when you make it!

Ciao xoxo