This was a great dish with wonderful flavor. Even the husband liked it a lot, despite the fact that it’s all dark meat.
Also I think I’ve found a new favorite spice: smoked paprika. Smokey, as you might expect, and complex. Best of all, McCormick makes it so they had it at Jewel, Home of One-Stop-Shopping for Those with Extremely Low Expectations.
I adapted the recipe slightly. It calls for cooking everything in a casserole but because it spends the whole time on top of the stove, I used my vessel of choice, the Le Creuset dutch oven.
The rest is simplicity itself: layer some sliced onions on the bottom of the pot, add 8 skinned chicken thighs, sprinkle with a wonderful blend of spices, add chicken broth and simmer for 30 minutes.
Then you boil some olives separately and discard the liquid. I’m tempted to skip this next time as I love the flavor of olives and hated to dilute them.
One glaring error in the recipe though is that they don’t insist that you serve it with something absorbent. At the last minute I realized that rice would be perfect but you should plan on it. If not rice then noodles. Even with cooking a little extra time, the sauce is very saucy; really more of a stew than anything else.
As much as I liked this I’m tempted to play with it. Adding a touch of yogurt to the sauce at the end is a thought. Also throwing some frozen peas in during the last 10 minutes of simmering seems like a nice way to add color and another vegetable.
The recipe suggests an optional brining of the chicken and Hesser encourages you to do it. I’m going contradict her and say that it’s really unnecessary. These are chicken thighs: they’re impervious to over cooking and will always be moist. Don’t bother.
Moroccan Chicken Smothered in Olives from The Essential New York Times Cookbook.
What, another cookbook I am going to have to buy??? That looks sooo good. I love chicken thighs and I am not a big dark meat fan either but I think thighs are a starter dark meat. I think I would serve this with couscous or orzo.
I’m glad you found a recipe from this book you like, after getting off to what seemed like a disappointing start.
This looks like a keeper.
When I make chicken paprikash – and I use whole legs cut in half, meaning thighs and drumsticks with the skin removed – the sauce is often rather thin at the end. Rather than using a little beurre manie or flour thinned with cream, I remove the chicken and green peppers and reduce the sauce. This works well without over-cooking the chicken and without making the sauce taste pasty.
I wonder if this will turn out to be one of those books I need two copies of – one for the city and one for the country. There aren’t too many of those.
Oh my this looks good. Did you use canned olives, Katiepie, or olives from an olive bar?
This calles for pitted green olives in a jar in brine (I could only find them in a can.) But, I think good olives from the olive bar would be delicious in this.
I made this last night with green olives from a jar. This recipe is a winner—very easy to prepare and delicious. Even DH, who’s not a fan of olives, loved it. Taking your advice, I did not brine the chicken and I did not boil the olives. I served it with brown jasmine rice, but next time I’ll use short grain brown rice. Thanks for pointing this recipe out, Kate.
Oops , forgot to add that I used 1/2 Sweet Paprika and 1/2 Smoked.
Made this last night and it was incredible! I did not brine the chicken and used smoked paprika instead of sweet. I also served it with Saffron rice which was a perfect combo!
Thanks!!
Glad you liked it Deborah, thanks for reporting back!