Moroccan chicken

I wanted to try a combi-steamer recipe that wasn’t a roast.  As good as a roast is in this appliance, it is good to try other ideas and see what the benefit is of the added moisture with the radiant heat when applied to smaller cuts of meat or chicken.

With this type of dish you want the radiant heat to brown or almost caramelise the chicken and the vegetables so that you get moist, tender chicken with just the juices from the meat and vegetables.  It isn’t meant to be a saucy curry.  If you want that see my eggplant curry here 

Delicious comfort food, this dish is impressive enough to serve for a casual dinner or a family meal.  No cleaning required in the combi on this occasion.

Excellent with the added moisture when reheated, we couldn’t tell that it wasn’t freshly cooked.  As with all spicy dishes, they always taste better the next day!

Apologies, not my best pic 🙂

Ingredients:  Serves 6

6 chicken thigh fillets, each cut into half or thirds for large ones
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp. grated ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
½ salt
1½ tsp turmeric
2 tsp sweet paprika

1 large red onion, cut into thin wedges
1 small eggplant, sliced and slices halved
2 tbsp. olive oil, extra
juice 1 lemon juice
1-2 tbsp. honey
8 fresh dates, pitted and quartered (substitute pitted dried dates or prunes)
½ can chickpeas, rinsed
2 tbsp. chopped preserved lemon (about one half, chopped finely)
¼ cup toasted slivered almonds to serve (optional but would be nice for texture)
Chopped parsley or coriander to serve (it needs something green)

Method:

1. Mix spices & salt together then add garlic, ginger and oil.  Mix well.
2. Combine with chicken.  Cover and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
3. Position grease filter in rear of Combi steam oven.  Preheat on Fan Plus 200°C.
4. Combine onion, eggplant and extra oil.  Line a solid tray with baking paper and add vegetables.  Cook for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from oven, add lemon juice, honey, dates, preserved lemon and chicken to onion mixture and mix to combine.  Return to oven.  If using dried fruit ‘hide’ them under the chicken pieces so they don’t dry out.
6. Select Combination mode 200°C + 50% moisture for 25 minutes.  Remove from oven, place the chickpeas around the chicken and rest for 5 minutes before serving.
7. You can literally slide the whole dish out of the steamer tray onto your serving platter and pull out the paper.  Great, less washing up!

Serve with cous cous here.  Would also be great with Pearl cous cous.

Remember you can’t add the cous cous to the combi whilst the chicken is cooking as you are also using radiant heat, not just steam alone.  As it only takes a few minutes you can cook it when the chicken is resting.  Keep the door open to cool down when you remove the chicken.

Recipe adapted from Miele