Chicken with Lemon Pickle and Olives (Moroccan Chicken) Recipe

Yasemin Kaya, a painting lover, science fiction enthusiast, and irrepressible passion for food, wrote for Yemek.com .

Actually, we are preparing Moroccan/Algerian style chicken. Pickled lemon peels with a different flavor or lemon peels that are rubbed with sea salt to remove the bitterness, green olives, lemon juice and fresh coriander. It is among the main flavors that add difference to chicken. Chicken, known as "Moroccan Chicken" and also "Djej Makalli" in world cuisine, is usually served with rice pilaf.

You can extend the marination for up to one night and prepare the recipe with diced chicken breasts in a cast iron pan. Enjoy your meal.

How to Make Chicken with Lemon Pickle and Olives (Moroccan Chicken) Recipe?

• For marinating the chicken; Crush the peeled garlic in a mortar. Mix saffron with a tablespoon of warm water.
• Mix powdered ginger, cumin, black pepper, hot red pepper, 1 teaspoon of olive oil and saffron soaked in warm water in a large bowl. After coating the cleaned whole chicken in this mixture, keep it in the refrigerator.
• Remove the inner part of the lemon pickle. Wash the peel and cut it into long thin pieces. Place the green olives in a small pot. After adding enough water to cover it, cook over low heat for 2 minutes.
• Boil the drained olives for another 2 minutes with the clear water you added later. Let the bitterness and salt come out of the olives.
• Remove the parsley and coriander leaves. Finely chop the fresh greens after washing them in plenty of water and drying them. Chop the onion into small pieces.
• Heat the remaining olive oil from the marinade mixture in the pan. Fry the onions until they get a light colour.
• Place the whole chicken in the marinade mixture on a shallow baking tray.
• Mix the marinade mixture with the hot chicken broth you prepared and then add it to the roasted onions.
• Transfer the sauce to which you add chopped parsley, coriander and salt to the baking tray.
• Add salted and bitter olives, lemon pickle slices and lemon juice and cook the chicken in a preheated oven at 200 degrees until golden brown.
• Share the Moroccan chicken with your loved ones, which you can serve with plain rice pilaf if desired.