Chicken & Apricot Tagine

I love trying out new recipes and often follow a hunch I have for something mixing flavours and textures to suit.

The following recipe is my own “concoction”. It serves 6 people

You will need

6 chicken portions

3 lemon confit

garlic

ginger

ras el hanout

1.5 litres of chicken stock

2 medium onions

4 large tomatoes

1 can of chick peas

handful of dried apricots

3 tablespoons of tomato puree

Method

1. Brown the chicken portions in a large pan / tagine
2. Add chopped garlic and ginger, season.
   
3. Add the lemons to the chicken (if you don’t have confit available I boil them and then squeeze insides through a sieve)
4. Add 3 desert spoons of Ras el Hanout spice stir and slowly add about 0.5 litre of stock, bring to boil.
5. Add chopped onions and chopped tomatoes along with chick peas and another 0.5 litres of chicken stock. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Check every now and again to make sure it is not sticking, add extra stock if necessary.
6. After about an hour taste, season if required, at this point I always add an extra desert spoon of spice and tomato puree along with the extra stock.
7. Simmer again – the longer the better. In total I cooked mine for about 2.5 hours.

To Serve

• About 10 minutes before serving add the apricots
• Serve with either rice, pitta or potatoes.
  
• We had a crisp white wine to accompany the soup – Carte Noire from Bérail Laragrde, Luc Sur Orbieu