I love a tagine.

For the uninitiated: a tagine is a Moroccan-style stew; it’s also the vessel said stew is cooked in. A tagine can be a one-pot meal, containing most of your food groups in a single, easy-to-prepare dish. Served over couscous or rice, it makes an easy but comfortably complex dining experience, excellent for all weathers. If you really want to be balanced, add a salad or green vegetable on the side.

It’s easy to find tagine cookbooks, and it’s actually not all that difficult to find tagines, either. My husband bought me this small and beautiful one for Mother’s Day a few years ago from Williams-Sonoma. It’s the perfect size for our family of four and sits directly on our gas stove. (If you have an electric range, tagines sometimes have to be handled a little differently; you can refer to the cookpot’s instructional guidelines for more information. They operate beautifully in an oven, too, which is what I used in our old house that had a glass cooktop.)

 

 

 

So the other night I needed to make dinner and didn’t have anything planned, but I did have a few simple ingredients on hand in the pantry (including canned vegetables, which means this was super easy to put together, though fresh ones will work beautifully too if you have the time). I made what I’m calling a Lemon Chicken Tagine. It ended up being delicious served over jasmine rice. Here’s the recipe.

 

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ingredients:

 

1 lb. fresh (or thawed, if frozen) chicken thighs
extra virgin olive oil (for sautéeing)
butter (for sautéeing)
minced garlic
1 can button mushrooms, drained
1 lemon, scrubbed and sliced (discard the rind tips)
1 can chick peas (also called garbanzo beans), drained
1 can sliced white potatoes, drained
salt (optional)
pepper (optional)
garlic salt
lemon pepper
water

 

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In a large pan (not your tagine yet), sautée the garlic and mushrooms in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add butter to taste; I usually drop in a good-sized spoonful scooped from the spreadable butter or a tablespoon of stick butter. Add the chicken thighs, chick peas, and potato slices. Now is a good time to add a little salt and pepper, if you like, to taste. Cook until the chicken is done (internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit), turning the thighs now and then and stirring the vegetables around.

When this is finished, transfer everything to the tagine. Add garlic salt and lemon pepper to taste. Spread the lemon slices around evenly. Add water to the dish just until everything is mostly covered, then stir everything up to make sure it’s well mixed. Stir gently, though: this dish will be full!

Cook the stew until it comes to a boil. Refer again to your own cookpot’s instructions for heating guidelines; mine works well up to medium heat on the stove. Once the stew is boiling, stir once more — gently — then cover with the conical cover and simmer on low heat. Again, individual tagine manufacturers  will recommend individual timing guidelines. (If your cookpot doesn’t have an instructional guide, you can find all manner of resources online to go with yours by doing a simple search.)

Here’s what my Lemon Chicken Tagine looked like when it was ready to serve:

 

 

Sort of a monochromatic meal, I admit, but the whole thing took less than 45 minutes to conceive of and prepare, and even my finicky-as-all-get-out children ate it and liked it, so I’m calling it a success! I served it over jasmine rice, and we even had enough leftovers for one hungry person to heat up for lunch or dinner.

Like I said before, there are all manner of tagine cookbooks out there. I even have a really good one. The thing is, a lot of the recipes in it don’t really work for my family most of the time. There’s always at least one ingredient that someone hates or is allergic to or that is impossible to find at the grocery store around the corner. Mostly what I’ve found is that these recipes are adaptable. Pick one that gets it mostly right for you and then pick and choose from the ingredients list as you see fit. Make substitutions with similar foods. Play around with it. Enjoy!