Chicken tangine with apricot and dates

 I tried to re-create this this weekend. Not too shabby, actually


Ingredients I remember:
1/2 a medium sized red onion, sliced
6 garlic cloves seriously minced or made into paste
     (note here, paste is a knife trick i learned in class, it is most excellent)
About 3 tablespoons olive oil
salt
pepper
tumeric
cumin
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger
Cilantro
1/2 cup ground tomatoes (just tomatoes.)
2 cups chicken stock
1 whole chicken, quartered and boned, cut into big pieces
2 carrots cut into bite-sized pieces
1 medium sized potato, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 a butternut squash cut into about 1/2 inch chunks
1/4 cup turkish apricots (the soft kind, NOT the co-op dehydrated within an inch of their lives kind) cut in quarters
1/4 cup dates, cut in quarters
salt
peppah
1/8 cup honey
rose tea
1 lemon to zest and squeeze

1 box cous-cous. Near East's cooks in 5 minutes.

1/4 cup almonds. chopped up or slivered.

Really, it's not as complicated as that list makes it look. I swear.

Heat the oil, onion, tumeric, cumin, a little chopped cilantro, ginger, about 1 teaspoon lemon zest in a deep frying pan at medium-high. Yeah I know you're supposed to have a Tangine oven.....this works just as well, apparently!

Stir around until the onions are soft. salt and pepper the chicken and put in pan. Brown the chicken, about 3 minutes each side. Add the garlic mince or paste and stir for another 30 seconds or so, until the garlic disappears.

add the chicken stock and tomatoes. stir. Taste and decide you need a little more cumin. add.
add potato, carrots, squash. cover on medium-low, toss in the cinnamon stick, and resist urge to tinker. Stir every 10-15 minutes or so for about 45 total minutes, or until the root veggies have that last trace of crunch in them, but are almost at that soft but firm state.

in another small pot heat about a cup of water, the juice of half your lemon, the honey, the apricots, the dates, and sprinkle in about half a teaspoon of the rose tea. steep and stir for about 10 minutes. Drain the liquid.

Add the mixture to the main dish and stir. Cover for another 10 minutes

cook cous-cous, as directed.

When you take the cous-cous off the heat, take some minced almonds and put them in the broiler until toasted, 1-3 minutes depending on your broiler.

dish the stew over cous cous and sprinke almonds and fresh  chopped cilantro.