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Chicken tagine with lemon with preserved lemons & olives

Tonia Buxton
Hi guys, its Zoe here and I have another tastyrecipe by a UKTS Patron, Tonia Buxton for you this week!  
The Chicken Tagine is a tasty and nutritious recipe that is perfect for the whole family. Small but helpful changes can be made toreduce iron intake with the cut of chicken you eat; the chicken breast has a lower iron content compared to chicken things for example. Using lemon, ginger and saffron for example is a great alternative to salt. Eating too much salt increases the risk of coronary heart disease as high consumption of salt increases blood pressure. Therefore, using other spices and seasoning is a great replacement of salt without decreasing the flavour! As always, I hope you enjoy this recipe, and any feedback or suggestions are welcomed.  
Please note that this is generic nutritional advice, and everyone has their own nutritional needs that is specific to them. For nutritional advice that is tailored to you, I would suggest seeing a registered dietician. 
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Course Main Course
Cuisine Mediterranean
Servings 2

Ingredients
  

  • 1 preservedlemon
  • 50 ml olive oil
  • 1 tsp melted butter
  • 2 cloves garlic finelychopped
  • 2.5 cm ginger grated
  • 1 tbsp ground coriander
  • pinch saffron strands
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 500 g chicken breast, cut into large chunks
  • 1 red onion finely chopped
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 10 green olives
  • 2 tbsp parsley finely chopped
  • 1 small bunch coriander roughly chopped
  • 1 tbsp fresh marjoram inely chopped
  • Couscousor crusty bread, to serve

Notes

Method:
  1. Cut the preserved lemon in half and separate the flesh from the peel. Set the peel aside and finely chop the flesh.
  2. Place the chopped lemon flesh in a casserole dish. Add the olive oil, melted butter, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, saffron, cinnamon stick and 250ml cold water and mix well.
  3. Add the chicken pieces to the casserole, having pierced them with a sharp knife so they absorb the spices. Mix all the ingredients together until the chicken pieces are coated in the marinade. Add the chopped onion and mix well.
  4. Cover the casserole with a lid and sear the chicken pieces over a low heat for 15 minutes. Keep the lid on to keep the moisture in. Turn each piece of chicken over and add a little water, if necessary.
  5. After 10 minutes, add 250ml cold water. Increase the heat to medium, cover and bring to the boil. Cook, covered, for 30 minutes, checking the chicken occasionally and adding water if necessary. There should always be enough sauce at the bottom of the tagine, so the meat doesn’t burn.
  6. Season, add the lemon peel and olives to the tagine and continue cooking, uncovered, for a few minutes, until the sauce slightly thickens.
  7. Sprinkle with chopped herbs and black pepper and serve hot with couscous or crusty bread.