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MIRIAM'S RECIPES:

Sephardic Chicken Tagine from our Sojourn in Morocco

Served with Preserved Lemons, Dried Apricots, and Green Olives.

Firstly, my Sweet Daughter, Aiyisha, find your old servant Selima and send her out to catch you a goodly chicken, have it killed according to the Law, pluck its feathers (keeping them for your pillows), burn off its pin feathers and wash it thoroughly making sure there is no blood. Cut the chicken into small pieces taking the bones out. (Add those to some wine, vegetables, and make your stock in a large pot.) Over low coals heat some olive oil in your tagine pot with crushed garlic as seems pleasing to your taste and that of your good husband. My Lord Husband and I do so love garlic that we use about 6 cloves of garlic or more, perhaps a lot more. Chop some onion, 2 or 3, if small, adding it to the garlic oil. Add the chicken pieces and fry gently in the oil. Then take a handful of freshly ground tumeric and comino, a goodly pinch of saffron and cinnamon and a dash of dried ginger, a tad of salt, only if necessary, and much crushed black pepper and heat in another pan over hotter coals, then add the spices to your stew and adding your chicken stock. Then take many dried apricots as pleases you (with their pits removed) and add them to the tagine and continue cooking it. You may chop them into smaller bites, if you so desire, but I think they make a better presentation when they are whole. Rinse your preserved lemons. [Only use the preserved lemons that were done properly with just lemon juice and salt & sealed with Uncle Daveed's beautifully green olive oil (first grind) in a glass jar, if you can afford one, then have it stored for a few weeks before you use them.] Please, dear Daughter, do not use Auntie Sarai's recipe, she adds too many spices to it, for my taste.) Take off the flesh of the lemons, leaving only the peel and chop it up into small bits and put them into the stew. Add your cracked green olives, too. Finally, take some honey without its honeycomb and add it to the tagine, both thickening and sweetening your dish so that even the Rabbi would be pleased to eat this dish (although not on the Sabbath). Take the tagine off the coals and serve it with couscous hand-fluffed with a light touch just as I showed you. Sprinkle some chopped cilantro over the dish, if you so desire. May this dish bring joy to your husband and his family and make soft the heart of Auntie Hannah toward you and yours.

Uncle and I are enjoying our sojourn in Marakkesh and look forward to traveling on to Algiers selling our wares. Give our love to the whole family. We will return to Al Andalusia as soon as we are able.

Miriam bas Levi has granted permission for all of her articles to appear on the Dreiburgen web site, 11 Oct 2006.

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