Moroccan Chicken

After experimenting with my Wonderbag for a few months, now, I have determined that chicken, specifically dark meat or bone-in chicken is the most wonderful meat to slow cook for hours. I've made successful beef and pork roasts, but chicken slow-cooked with vegetables and spices typically turns out the most delicious and the most tender. As a result, I'm sharing with you a recipe with a similar idea to the previous one, though definitely different in flavor.

This recipe was definitely an impulse meal, and as such, I didn't really measure any ingredients. It turned out fantastically, and was actually surprisingly easy to make. For such a small time commitment, it was a delicious result.

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/3 cup chopped bell pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped celery
- 6-8 chicken legs
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 large, or 2 small, diced potatoes
- About 1 cup chicken broth
- Ginger
- Cumin
- Turmeric
- Coriander
- Paprika
- Fennel seeds
- About 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- Honey
- About 1/2 cup raisins
- About 1/3 cup roasted chopped (or slivered) almonds

I started by chopping up about half an onion and some bell peppers and sauteeing them in some olive oil with all the spices--ginger, cumin, turmeric, coriander, fennel seeds, and paprika--about 1 teaspoon of each, except for the paprika, of which I used about 2 tablespoons. Once the onions and peppers were soft and had soaked up a good amount of spices and olive oil, I added the chicken, and browned it on both sides. Then I added the can of tomatoes and the chicken broth, as well as the lemon juice. I then waited until the stew had started to simmer, and added in the potatoes, making sure that all the chicken and vegetables were covered completely with the sauce. I let that simmer for about 15 minutes, and then stuck it in the bag! The chicken was so tender that it started to fall off the bone before it even went into the Wonderbag.

Moroccan chicken pre-Wonderbag!

I let my stew (or tagine, if we're really trying to channel Morocco) cook away in the Wonderbag for about three hours. Though I didn't keep it in there for very long, this would be a great dish to prepare pre-work and come home to eat! The flavors will only intensify, and the chicken will only get more tender, and what's not to love about that?! Just before removing my pot from the Wonderbag, I cooked up a mixture of grains to serve under the stew, including quinoa, barley, baby garbanzo beans, orzo, and Israeli couscous. I topped the whole mess off with a large dollop of plain Greek yogurt, which helps to off-set the slight spiciness of the dish, and makes the remaining sauce slightly creamy. 

Moroccan chicken over a five-grain blend, topped with Greek yogurt.

If you're going to be serving a wine with this dish, I recommend something light, white, and slightly sweet. I paired my chicken with a Vouvray (a French white wine made from 100% Chenin Blanc grapes) but a lightly sweet Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, or even Sauvignon Blanc would be tasty. A slightly sweet, chilled, white wine will help to balance the inherent spice in the dish, and will be crisp and refreshing.

Bon appétit, or, as they say in Morocco, بالصحة ! 

(I'm not going to lie, I just googled that. If you're wondering how to pronounce the Arabic, it's apparently "besseha." Ah, the wonders of Google.)

(Note: This dish can easily be made in a crock pot or slow cooker if you don't have a Wonderbag.)

Mediterranean Chicken

Perhaps my favorite dish I've made in my Wonderbag (so far) is a delectable Mediterranean concoction. I've made it quite a few times for a range of audiences, and it's gotten the thumbs-up from all of them (including my mother, who is the queen of cooking and taught me everything I know!) It only takes about 20 minutes to prepare, unless you forgot to defrost the chicken that you bought specifically for this purpose but then accidentally froze... in which case it takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes, allowing for the thawing time.

My recipe is as follows:

- 8-10 chicken legs (or thighs, just make sure that whatever you use has the bones in it, as it lends flavor to the meat)

- 1 small can of sliced black olives

- a few tablespoons of capers

- 2 cans diced tomatoes (I like the no-salt-added tomatoes)

- 1/2 to 3/4 cup of chicken broth (again, I like low- or no-sodium)

- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil

- 1/3 cup (ish) diced onion

- 2-3 cloves garlic, diced

- oregano, basil, black pepper, all to taste

(Disclaimer: I never measure amounts of anything while I cook, so these are just ballpark numbers. Use more or less as you taste and make this recipe your own!)

Before I start actually cooking anything, I remove the skin off my chicken. This is a personal preference. Chicken tends to brown more nicely with the skin on, but I just really dislike the texture and the fact that it's terrible for you. I have made this recipe with the skin both on and off, and it turned out fantastically either way!

Heat up your olive oil in a heavy, lidded pan. This will be the pot that you eventually stick in your Wonderbag, so make sure it's big enough to hold everything! I usually use a 3- or 4-quart stew pot. Once the oil is hot, add your diced onions and garlic. Sauté them for a few minutes until they are just beginning to brown.

Add your drumsticks to the oil-garlic-onion mess that is making your kitchen smell like an Italian restaurant. Rotate them so that they brown evenly on all sides and add oregano, basil, and black pepper to taste. You can also add any other spices that you feel would add to the dish. Sometimes I throw in some rosemary and thyme. Your call.

Once the chicken is browned and crunchy-looking on all sides, add everything else. Dump in the two cans of tomatoes, the black olives (be sure to drain the water out of them first), the capers, and the chicken broth until the whole mixture has the consistency of thick stew. It should look like this:

The chicken with tomatoes, olives, capers, spices, and broth.

Now let the mess boil for 15 minutes. After that's done, turn off the heat and put the lidded pot inside your Wonderbag and cinch the bag shut tightly. 

Now all that's left to do is wait. Since the whole preparation process only takes about 15-20 minutes, I normally make this before work and leave it in my Wonderbag for 8-10 hours before eating it for dinner. I'd recommend leaving it in there for at least 2 hours, but at 8-10 hours the chicken literally falls off the bone. Yum.

At this point, I should probably add that recipe can easily be duplicated in a crock pot/slow cooker, aside from browning the chicken. If you're Wonderbag-less, feel free to complete the recipe in a pot on the stove and then transfer the stew-mess into a crock pot to cook while you're at work/the gym/where ever. It turns out the same way--the important thing is to keep cooking it on low heat for a long time to get that delicious fall-off-the-bone meat infused with all the Mediterranean flavors.

When you're finally ready to eat this delicious concoction (I mean, you were ready when you started 8 hours ago, but now it's finally time), I normally cook up some cous-cous to serve it over. Trader Joe's whole wheat cous-cous is my personal choice, but really anything should do. (Serving it over barley, rice, or pasta is also great, depending on your preference.) I like serving everything in a bowl, with the chicken served over a bed of cous-cous, and topped with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. 

Voilá! Here's the finished dish:

Chicken over cous-cous with parmesan cheese.

To really enhance the flavors, I'd pair this dish with a nice Pinot Noir to balance the saltiness (thanks, capers) or a jammy red-fruit Merlot to offset the heavy tomato. If white wine is more your style, I'd stick with a heavily oaked Chardonnay, and go no lighter than that. However, wine is delicious, and this dish is delicious, so if none of these suggestions match your palette, go with your favorite and see what happens. You're bound to have a great meal no matter what.

Enjoy!

About The Bag Lady

My name is Kyra and I'm a 22-year-old college graduate living in the Twin Cities. I spend all day ordering wine for Trader Joe's, and all night cooking. I love food, wine, and experimenting with the two. Whether it's new recipes, or interesting food and wine pairings, you can find me in the kitchen, developing something new.

So two months ago, when one of my best friends, George, told me about the Wonderbag, I was intrigued. As its website so succinctly states:

The Wonderbag was developed to ease the social, economic and environment[al] impacts of the current global circumstances. The Wonderbag is a non-electric, heat-retention cooker that allows food that has been brought to a boil, to continue cooking after it has been removed from the fuel source. (http://nb-wonderbag.com/)

So obviously this thing appealed to me on many levels. On the environmental level, I can now cook for hours with zero energy use, either in the form of electricity or cooking gas, which means a (very marginally) cleaner planet! On the economic level, I'm not paying for hours of energy to cook my food, and I'm not wasting valuable resources that could (maybe) be better used elsewhere! And on the Kyra-has-too-many-irrational-fears level, I can now happily leave my apartment and go to work or the gym or... (nope, wait, those are the only places I go...) without constantly worrying that my slow-cooker/stove has burst into flames and burned down my entire apartment building and the renter's insurance won't cover it and I'll be left with crippling debt for the rest of my life...

And the absolute best part? It works. All you do is bring the contents of your pot up to a rolling boil, and then put the covered pot into this ingenious bag and tie it shut. And it just keeps cooking, cooking, cooking for up to 12 hours.

This is a picture of my Wonderbag, with a coffee cup for size reference.

Thanks be to George, who finally got his hands on one for me. (You can get yours on Amazon... if you're lucky.) This bag is revolutionary.

This blog is where I'll be documenting my wildly successful (and, I suppose, the inevitable dramatically catastrophic) adventures with my Wonderbag.