Moroccan Chicken Thighs

Here’s another recipe from my new favorite cookbook – Cooking Light 2009 recipes. I didn’t adjust this recipe AT ALL. It’s perfection in a pan. The spice combination is fragrant and appealing, the apricots and a sweet taste and the chicken absolutely melts in your mouth. I served this over couscous for my husband and myself. My son won’t go near couscous so he had it over rice. We all LOVED it. This is a keeper.

Ingredients:

1 Tbls. olive oil
Cooking Spray
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 thinly sliced yellow onion
1 Tbls minced peeled fresh ginger (I used crushed ginger from a jar. Easier – and no taste difference)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ cups chicken broth (next time I may adjust and add 2 cups of chicken broth so there will be more juice to go over the couscous or rice)
1 – 15 ½ oz. can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 – 7oz package dried apricots, cut in half
Salt & Pepper for seasoning

Directions:

Heat a large Dutch-oven over medium high heat; spray with cooking spray and add olive oil. Sprinkle chicken thighs with salt and pepper. In batches, brown the chicken on all sides in Dutch-oven – approximately 5 minutes for each batch. Remove chicken from pan to plate and continue in batches until all chicken has been browned. I sprayed the pan in between batches to keep the chicken from sticking.

Add onions to pan; sauté 3 minutes, or until tender. Add ginger and next 6 ingredients; sauté for 30 seconds until fragrant. Stir in broth, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Return chicken to pan; bring to a simmer. Cover and reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hour or until chicken is tender. (When I make this again, I think I will only simmer for about 40 minutes. The chicken really fell apart and I wasn’t able to chop into pieces. It was more on the stringy side. So I suggest you reduce the simmering time.)

Remove chicken from the pan with a slotted spoon; cool slightly. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Add chicken, garbanzo beans, and apricots to pan. Cover and simmer 10 – 15 minutes, until thoroughly heated through.

click here for printable recipe