Chicken Tagine with Potatoes, Carrots and Apples

This Chicken Tagine with Potatoes, Carrots and Apples is a delicious one pot meal full of herby and tangy flavours. All you need is some bread! Or couscous.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

What is an Authentic Tagine Recipe?

One of the more common questions I get asked in my Moroccan cooking classes is what makes an authentic tagine recipe.

My reply is always the same: there are too many tagine recipes to call a single one authentic and it also does rather depend on where you are from!

While you can get almost specific recipes in North Africa, you are most likely going to find a huge mix of combinations, both in terms of “filling” and flavour.

Chicken tagines, lamb tagines, vegetable tagines, egg tagines; with or without olives, with or without preserved lemons and so many other variations.

Today’s recipe is pretty straightforward, and like all tagine recipes, can be made in a tagine, a Dutch oven or a regular saucepan.

• We start off with making Chermoula, a 5 minute marinade that’s popular all over North Africa. Click to read more.
• We then marinate the chicken while we get the other ingredients ready, then off we go, leaving everything on the hob.

If you can, and the chicken will be better for it, marinade the chicken for an hour or even overnight if you fancy.

Sometimes, tagines are a side dish, but sometimes, they can be a complete one pot meal. Like today’s chicken tagine.

Here, the potatoes and carrots add substance to the whole dish and a touch of sweet as well. The apples add a wonderful sweet and tangy dimension that complements the preserved lemon we’re using in this recipe.

The final dish is a complex mix of earthy, spicy (not hot) sweet and tangy flavours that will be perfect with just about any starch you fancy having.

When eating out in North Africa, we would almost always have these kind of tagines with bread. However, if we were buying it to take it home, we’d cook some couscous to go with it, as the kids prefer it with couscous.

So you can serve it however you like, and really, any bread will do. I have a thing about French baguettes and stews/curries – match made in heaven!

Needless to say, white rice is another fantastic accompaniment to tagines, its bland constitution soaks up all the flavours of a tagine beautifully.

What is Liquid Saffron (Bloomed Saffron)?

You’ll see that I list liquid saffron as an ingredient here, something that we’ll be making ourselves that takes minutes only.

Some Middle Eastern recipes, especially of Persian origin, call for liquid saffron. On the other hand, many recipes by non Middle Eastern cooks will ask you to soak the saffron in water for 20 minutes or so before using it.

In the former, you use every single bit of the saffron. However, in the latter, the saffron threads, to me, are wasted and not fully appreciated in the recipe.

To get liquid saffron, all we do is grind it and soak it briefly in hot water. That’s it.

Click the button below for my method and the video that accompanies it.

Making this Chicken Tagine Vegetarian

Replace the chicken with a combination of chickpeas (and/or other beans) and stew friendly vegetables like courgettes (zucchini), aubergines (eggplants) and squash. Even okra would be great but leave them whole.

Make Ahead Chicken Tagine

Can be made well ahead of time and reheated very gently. It is absolutely wonderful the next day, just like curries and stews.

However, I wouldn’t freeze it, as the potatoes will basically fall apart after freezing.

If you like the recipe, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Merci!

And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood

Lin xx