I didn't set out to have another enlightening cooking experience. I just stumbled upon this one, and it was like a gift of manna from heaven. I remembered late this morning that it was a Saturday, and that the farmers market is now open on weekends. We've been meaning to go for a few weeks now. It was still relatively small this early in the season, and I had a hard time believing that most of the produce was really locally grown. As the man pointed out later, "Avocados? Really?" But still we had a good time wandering down the rows. When he stopped to talk to a man who didn't have any customers, about what it would take to get a booth down there (we have all those rugs, remember), I nosed around some bedding plants to see whether anyone is selling lemon verbena (so far, the answer is no). It turns out the guy my man talked to was a spice seller, and I thought if he was going to be so friendly and talkative, the least I could do was shop in his booth. Oh, my, what a good idea that turned out to be. I found some new spice blends that I'd never thought of, most importantly, a classic Moroccan blend called Ras el Hanout. This had a ton of flavors that feature prominently in my culinary vocabulary, plus a few I have never experimented with, like grains of paradise. I asked the seller what to put it on, and he suggested a slow-roasted chicken or roasted cauliflower. Once I was home and waiting to thaw the whole, locally-raised, organic chicken I also bought at the farmers market (while the man bought a gardenia to help soak up water down by the weeping willow swamp), I searched Pinterest for recipe ideas for these spices. There's an interesting roasted vegetable soup that I may do with the leftover chicken.
I'm sure once I've moved and am no longer trying to thin down the number of boxes we have to carry to the new house, I will look into buying a more traditional clay tagine pot to use for this recipe. But for now, I used a stainless steel Dutch oven on the stovetop, and then later under the broiler once I took it to Bonfire. I'm also going to plan ahead and not buy a whole chicken that is frozen solid on the day I want to cook it. I tried running cold water over it slowly, but that got me nowhere fast, so I filled the sink and swooshed it around, and it still took over two hours to loosen up enough to work with. I needed two different pairs of kitchen scissors and a big butcher knife to successfully cut out the spine, and I still had to run water to thaw the insides, where the neck had been stuffed and frozen into place. It was a horrifying experience, and I kept repeating silently in my head the mantra: "I am a human and I eat bodies. This is normal." I declined to take photos of the "spatchcocking" process, mostly because it was so gross to do this, and also because I didn't want to get chicken parts on my phone. After it simmered slowly for two hours plus a little, I wrapped up the Dutch oven in a towel, and took it over to Bonfire Gardens to finish under the broiler, and we served it with green beans, brown rice, and a salad. Next time, I'm going to be sure to add green peas and carrots, because the smell of the spices begged to have those earthy flavors with it.
The process was incredibly easy, merely time consuming. Having the Ras el Hanout spices already mixed saved me a lot of effort, but if you want to look them up and combine them separately, you could adjust the measurements according to your tastes. Generally, it's made of cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, mace, coriander, allspice, fenugreek, grains of paradise, ginger, and rose petals. There may have been a few other things in there as well, plus the ubiquitous salt and pepper (in this case, Himalayan pink salt and exotic peppers).
For Moroccan Chicken Tagine:
I sliced a whole sweet onion and chopped up three large cloves of garlic. I put half the onion in the bottom of a Dutch oven (a tall, lidded, conical clay pot is traditional) along with all of the garlic. I spatchcocked a whole chicken (cut out the spine with scissors so I could lay it out flat) and put it over the onions, skin side up. I sprinkled the top with a generous amount of Ras el Hanout, pink salt, fresh ground pepper, and a little extra coriander (because Anne) and topped with the other half of an onion. I poured between a quarter and a third of a cup of olive oil over it, and added about a half a cup of water. I let it come to a simmer slowly, covered it, and turned it down to the lowest setting my stovetop has. After about 2.25 hours, I turned the heat off, and it remained warm for half an hour while I traveled. Once at my friends' house, we put it under the broiler with a can of green beans down in the cooking liquid, for just a few minutes to brown the skin on the chicken. I shredded the meat off the bones, and we served it with the green beans and cooking juices over brown rice. It was amazing. If you can't find this blend at your local regular stores (I've never seen it before), feel free to order from the very nice spice man I met today: www.charlestonspice.com. (Caveat, I can't find that blend on their web page, but I bet if I emailed them I could get it.)
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