Thursday, July 11, 2013

Dinner for One: Moroccan Chicken with Rice

It never fails, whenever I end up watching cooking or travel shows I get the urge to compete in a solo Quick Fire Challenge and create a dish purely from my pantry and refrigerator.  On this particular lonely night, I was watching Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" where he traveled to Morocco. Knowing I had left over chicken in my fridge, I decided to make myself a Moroccan style chicken dinner.  I've never made this before so I mostly eyeballed everything.  I did cheat a little and searched for Moroccan chicken recipes on Pinterest to get a feel for a recipe and the proportions for the spices.

I noticed a recipe called for almonds-- and I was lucky enough that my roommate had left over almond slices she used for baking, so I snagged them.   I always have a range of spices: cumin, ground ginger, cinnamon, tumeric, ground coriander, paprika, and fennel seeds, which were used for my DIY recipe.  I also had rice, yellow onions, garlic, raisins, lemon juice (no real lemons on hand), mint and parsley to complete my self-induced challenge.

I toasted the almonds with the spices for a couple of minutes until fragrant.  I turned off the heat and let it cool.

I started cooking the rice while I prepared my chicken.  I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper and set it aside.  I heated up olive oil in a skillet at medium heat.  I cooked the sliced onions and minced garlic in the skillet until the onions were translucent.  I took half of the spices and rubbed it on the chicken and placed it in the skillet with the onions and garlic-- cooking each side for 8 mins or so (until golden brown).  I did add a little water to the pan to avoid burning the spiced crust of the chicken.

When the rice was done, I added the left over spices/almonds and raisins and mixed it in.  For garnish, I sprinkled finely chopped parsley and mint and poured a tiny amount of lemon juice.  Below is the final and very delicious end product.  I think I would have made it on top if this was a real challenge (with no tagine or anything).