Biss'ha

That's arabic for "chow down motherf*cker!!" Ok, not really, it means enjoy your meal. The point of the exercise was to awkwardly segue into the fact that last night I got out my fez (which was all dusty and gross because it's been in a box in the basement all this time) and made the plunge into trying to cook Moroccan food. I've been toying with 90 million and 1 ideas for a while now and last night I completely abandoned them all and wung it (wung: the past tense of wing)

I need to find an actual moroccan person to know because I must be missing something, but it was pretty tasty and definitely different than anything I've had before so I think I'm on the right track. I also like to think I need a tagine but have held off for a variety of reasons, like that I really probably don't.

Anyhow, last night's exercise centered around a bag of spices I bought off a pirate at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. While perusing and chatting, we got to talking and the next thing I know I'm walking away with a cup of Ras el hanout and some loose instructions about what to do with it.

Last night, because it's better than work, I decided I would get a whole bunch of stuff going on for dinner and in perusing the kitchen area I decided I needed to use the chicken in the fridge, my clay pot cooker that I SCORED! on this summer at the yard sale and some more of the endless couscous stash in my cabinets. All signs pointed to Moroccan and I remembered said bag of spices, dug it out of our "special bowl where we keep miscellaneous ethnic spice things in little baggies" and got going. I totally failed to get a pic, but when I replate it all up for dinner tonight I will do it.

In grubbing around for side ideas, I tripped over this ho and copied her style right down to molding the couscous. I also noticed carrots and chickpeas kept popping up, and knowing nothing about Moroccan cooking but thinking it plausible that these would pass muster, I decided on that for the vegetable involved.

So I rubbed down the chicken with the spice mix, salted and peppered it and let it sit for a while. While it was sitting I filled the sink to soak the clay cooker (mental note: there has to be a better way) and got to chopping. Chop a bunch of carrots, onions, prunes, and garlic into a bowl. Add can of drained chickpeas and some parsley, drizzle with olive oil, add a pinch of kosher salt and toss. Dump into (20 minute soaked) clay pot, pour half a glass of wine and a little chicken stock over top. Brown chicken skin side down in a frying pan, throw on top of veggies, cover and put in cold oven. turn oven to 400 and walk away.

Wait, first throw some saffron threads into 1C of chicken broth and let it sit on top of the stove so it warms up but don't cook it. Then walk away.

I think I let it cook 40 minutes or so, I didn't worry too much about it because it won't dry out in the clay (that's the point of the clay). Once it's done (meat thermometer, clear juices, whatever your pleasure) take it all out of the oven, strain out the juices into a special cup thing for gravy making, and let the chicken and vegetables rest. Chicken gets tired easily, just leave it in the clay pot with the lid cracked a little.

While the chicken is resting, boil the broth/saffron and once it goes throw in the right amount of couscous, remove from heat and cover. Use this time to look up and yell arabic phrases to nervous looking boyfriend in the other room. (do NOT attempt to explain presence of the Fez or why you own one. It's noone's business)

At this point I made gravy from the juice by melting a pat of butter and pouring in the juices and a little bit of the fat.

I plated the meal to make it look just so, using the couscous mold idea above, a pile of beautiful veggies and some chicken slices on the side. Drizzle wif da jus and sprinkle with parsley.

Things I might do different:
-might do the chicken outside the clay. I think I would prefer crispy skin in this case.
-a pile of some sort of spinach thing would have looked nice with all the other colors. Will investigate whether this is feasibly African enough to get on board.