Yellow

Lots of yellow going on today.. it first began with a bit of turmeric root I picked up at the local chinese supermarket.

Have been holding onto it for a while but couldn't quite figure out what to do with it other than throw it in some soup while I had a cold last week to hopefully extract some of benefits and help with a speedy recovery.

Here is a family favourite recipe I grew up with, to be perfectly honest I didn't enjoy it as a child, something about it was too sweet and I'm a savoury person all the way but now having grown up I can really appreciate it. Not exactly sure of the origins of the dish but it was a recipe that my fathers Iraqi cousin had taught my mother who has made it ever since and it's known as "Dajaj Maghrebi" to us "Moroccan Chicken" but I'm unsure of it's authenticity in Moroccan cuisine, never the less it is delicious!

- Started out by caramelizing some onions as you see below (note all the yellow leaves covering my deck this morning, beautiful! )

- To the onions I've added some raisins and a bit of broth to moisten, seasoning it and adding a bit of sugar. Setting aside this mixture on a plate.

- Turned the heat up in the pot and covered the bottom with a good amount of salt, and added the chicken pieces when it was hot. The chicken browned while I kept an eye on it flipping it once and then adding broth and turmeric root, salt, black pepper and letting it simmer with the lid on.

*** If you don't have turmeric use ground turmeric spice, it is what we traditionally use anyway but since I had the root on hand I thought I'd give it a try. Also if you're using the root wear gloves when cutting/peeling because it stains the fingers badly.

- Prepared a baking dish and placed the pieces of chicken in a flat layer then spooned the delicious onion mixture on top of the pieces and poured in some broth. Add some finely minced preserved lemon to this if you wish, I did.

- Baked this on 375 until chicken was fully cooked, throughout the baking process you can baste it with the broth on the bottom.

- Once it was out of the oven I threw a bit of butter cubes into the small amount of sauce/broth in the bottom and mixed it until it was glossy then spooned the pieces of chicken over a bed of couscous.

As you see above the way we served it was without the parsley but I decided to garnish it with some parsley too and I found the flavours very complementary!

What a great Autumn dish!