Moroccan chicken and chickpeas. That’s a pretty broad description. This version is a warm dish of onion, garlic, spices and peanut butter. The chicken stays crispy and the chickpeas get meltingly delicious. It just works. And it works well.
Moroccan chicken and chickpeas is one skillet dish that I’ve been making forever. It’s not particularly authentic, I don’t think. But it’s really good. One of those homey style dishes that hits the spot.
I adapted the recipe from a small lunch cafe years ago. They called it Moroccan chicken. Good enough for me. I upped the spice some and added some of the Ethiopian berbere chili powder. That’s wonderful stuff. If you’ve never tried it, I urge you to. It’s a mix of spices and Ethiopian chilies and it’s absolutely haunting.
The one trick in this recipe is to keep the chicken on top of the chickpeas when it’s in the oven. The juices from the chicken drip into the chickpeas. The skin stays crispy. Everything comes out perfect.
moroccan chicken and chickpeas
Ingredients
- 4 chicken legs or breasts
- 1 onion diced
- 2 carrots diced
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 1 Tbsp curry powder
- 2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2-1 tsp Ethiopian chili powder - can substitute less cayenne
- 4 plum tomatoes diced. Canned is fine.
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
- 2 15 oz cans chickpeas
- salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 375F.
- Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper.
- Heat enough oil in an oven-proof skillet large enough to hold all the ingredients.
- When the oil is shimmering, place the chicken, skin side down and brown. This should take 3-4 minutes.
- Turn the chicken over and brown another 3-4 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the pan and spoon off all but 3 Tbsp of the fat.
- Add the onions and carrots and cook until the onions are translucent and just start to brown.
- Stir in the garlic and cook a minute more. Add the tomatoes and cook another minute or so.
- Add 1/4 cup of stock, the curry powder, cumin powder and Ethiopian chili powder and stir. Now add the peanut butter and stir to combine.
- Add the remaining stock and chickpeas. Place the chicken overtop and bring to a simmer.
- Place the skillet in the oven and cook until the chicken registers 175F in the thigh. This takes 20-30 minutes.
- Serve chicken overtop a mound of chickpea curry.
Nutrition
Gunpowder potatoes are India’s spicy, wonderfully delicious answer to chili cheese fries or poutine. Aloo chaat. Potato flavour bombs.
Indian taste meets addictive North American junk food flavour. Grilled. With butter. And Indian spices. There is nothing not to love here.
Dishoom’s gunpowder potatoes are famous for a reason
Dishoom is a trendy Indian restaurant in London’s west end. Big lines. Big prices. Posh Indian. A big deal. But there’s no reason you can’t make them yourself.
This is my adaptation of their gunpowder potatoes. These are a bit more restrained and lighter on the whole spices but pretty similar in concept.
You can push them closer to the original by upping the chili and whole cumin seeds. But any way you try them, they are absolutely killer delicious.
Aloo chaat by any other name
This dish is a riff on Indian street food. Aloo chaat specifically. Potatoes with chaat spices. The key flavour comes from chaat masala. You have to buy chaat masala at an Indian grocery store.
Read the ingredients. Make sure the chaat masala mix you get has black salt. Or buy some separately. Black salt gives chaat masala its signature flavour. Until you taste it you will have no idea what I am talking about.
Or make it yourself. Nothing beats fresh ground spices made in your own kitchen. Try this version of chaat masala sometime.
