A few years ago, we visited my dear great aunt down on her farm, and she half joked that it was shameful how I cooked so often but never recorded my recipes and hardly ever repeated them. She has multiple, alphabetized rolodexes of all the recipes she has created or used frequently over 75 years of entertaining. Talk about a treasure trove! But I couldn’t share my recipes with her—they’re usually on the fly and hardly ever remain in my memory. Often when I make them again, they just don’t turn out the same.
Do you document what you cook? It can be time consuming and still inaccurate, but as much as I treasure having copies of some of my grandmother’s and my great aunt’s recipes, my hope is that recording mine will be useful to someone some day.
If you follow me on Instagram (which I hope you do!), you may have seen my first ever Live videos today. If you haven’t, I saved them into a series of workday cooking videos that I hope to add to in the future. Like so many people, the pandemic has upended our routines and lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Now, instead of weekends or evenings, I do a lot of meal prep during the day while I’m working from home. Today, I had planned to eat leftovers, but after an inhuman amount of Zoom meetings, and the kind you essentially listen to that aren’t very interactive, I felt like using my hands and mind and unleashing my creativity. Off to the kitchen I went for lunch. I had an hour allotted for the break, and that was more than enough time to make what I’m calling One-Pot Moroccan Chicken with Cauliflower.
Into my 8-quart dutch oven went half a large red onion and two red bell peppers, both chopped, and a couple of glugs of olive oil. While those were cooking down, I salted and peppered 1.4 lbs of skin on, bone-in chicken thighs (this equated two medium and one really large thigh). Don’t skip the skin and bones…they add so much flavor and depth to the dish. Add them, skin down, to the pot, and leave them be while you rough chop half a head of cauliflower and about pound of mushrooms.
One of our essential, must-have kitchen gadgets is a Thermapen. They come in a ton of colors, are $99, and are durable and accurate. My husband purchased one years ago after reading the 4-Hour Chef and since then, he has read other cookbooks, watched countless videos, and has perfected grilling and smoking meat. I never really cared to use it, but after seeing what a difference a simple thermometer can make in the juiciness protein, I have started to be more intentional with how I cook high quality cuts of meat. (A pound of chuck I’ll chuck into the Instantpot any old day, but bone-in chicken thighs are a midday treat!). Thermapens are excellent gifts and we have sent them to multiple family members for the holidays. If you check out Instagram, you’ll also see that I‘ve used it in lieu of a candy thermometer, which worked a charm to make Sesame Brittle last month.
Back to this one pot meal! Check the temp on the thighs, and if the skin looks nice and crispy, go ahead and turn them over to continue cooking through. Now add the mushrooms and hang out until the chicken reaches about 155F. Once it has, and the thighs may not reach this temperature at the same time…go ahead and remove the chicken and place on a separate dish. Then add the cauliflower to the pot, stir, and add in about a half of a small preserved lemon; 1 1/2 tbs of Better than Bouillion and water OR add enough stock to barely cover the cauliflower.
Bring up the heat and let that stock get bubbly until the cauliflower is al dente, and then nestle the thighs back into the pot. At this point, add about a dozen green olives. I used castelvetrano, my favorite, but you can use others as you wish. If you use a smaller olive, be sure to add about 18 or a half cup.
At this point the dish will be ready as soon as the chicken is, so check the temp on it. Keep in mind it will have cooled off while resting, so you’re really just bringing it to temp. I kept the lid on at low-medium while I set the table and enjoyed a few sips of Spindrift. Let’s say with 3-4 minutes.
This was an off the cuff, use what I had in the fridge kind of creation and I want to add some notes. First of all, the only thing Moroccan about this is the preserved lemon. Switch it out for fresh, adjust your salt, and you’ve practically got Mediterranean chicken. If you want more Moroccan flavor, I’d recommend adding:
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger or some chopped fresh ginger
And whenever I cook with mushrooms these days, I add some of the Trader Joe’s Umami mushroom powder and sometimes I even throw in some dried mushrooms! Both of these add so much depth and, well, umami. No lie. I also frequently use Penzey’s Sunny Spain, which is a no-salt lemon pepper that adds a little kick and a lot of brightness to our food.
Finally, note that I didn’t season the vegetables. The broth, the chicken fat, Umami powder, lemon and olives add loads of flavor. You won’t need more.
Be sure to tag me if you try this out! It is some serious coziness in a bowl, and in 2020, I’ll take all the coziness and comfort I can get. ❤
The Life So Valley 