I Blame the Pot

The clay pot, that is. I wrote in a previous post about the clay pot that Stein got for Christmas. Well, here it is, in the picture above. When he opened it up, we had no idea what it could be used for. My brother Bryan kept saying, "Tandoori Chicken." Yum, we thought, we love Indian food.


Then we were going to use the pot last weekend. But about an hour before we were going to use it, Stein looked at the little sticker on the side of the pot that said, "Submerge pot in water for at least 12 hours prior to using." I guess we weren't going to use it then.


We thought we were smart when we remembered to submerge the pot on Saturday night prior to using it on Sunday. The submerging part was easy. Finding a recipe was another story. We scoured the Internet for recipes for Tandoori Chicken in a clay pot. We found thousands of recipes for Tandoori Chicken, but none in the clay pot. I learned more than I ever thought I'd learn about Tandoori Chicken. I also learned that the pots that are used to cook Tandoori Chicken are big, and are usually buried partially in the ground outside. I soon discovered that we didn't have a Tandoori Chicken pot, we had something else.


Another search on "Chicken cooked in terra cotta pot" led me to a recipe for Tagine Chicken. Apparently this is a Northern African/Moroccan dish that is traditionally cooked in a vessel like ours. So our vessel is called a Tagine. Another bonus, was that the meat for Tagine Chicken didn't need to be marinated for at least 6 hours like the Tandoori Chicken. Perfect. Until we looked at the ingredients for the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_16461,00.html

What are "preserved lemons"? This led to another search. Preserved lemons are pickled lemons, that you can make at home. That is, if you have 4-6 weeks for them to sit in their pickling juices. We had 4-6 hours, not 4-6 weeks.


Stein suggested we go to an ethnic market. Luckily we live in a town that is diverse enough to warrant many ethnic markets. I looked on the Internet. Two were about a block away from each other: Aladdin's Market and Bombay Market. Surely we could find what we wanted at one of the two. And we did. When we walked into Aladdin's Market and inquired about the lemons, the kind man said, "Yes, we do." As he walked to the back of the store to show me, he added, "And you're like the 4th person who has asked for these this week. Is there a recipe out there or something?" I explained that we were making Tagine Chicken. Here's what the lemons look like if you have never seen them:



Stein and I did a quick lap around the store to see what other goodies we could buy. "We'll be back," Stein said, as we passed by the massive display of baklava, hummus, and Baba Ghanouj. It smelled wonderful in that store.


Then it was on to Bombay Market. The smells in this store were equally wonderful. They had different beans, rices and spices lining the shelves that reached to the ceiling. I wanted to see if they had any Naan, the bread that is usually served in Indian restaurants. They did. About 10 different kinds. So I grabbed a bag of Naan, grabbed a bag of fried cheese cubes (Paneer) and headed up to the counter. The cutest Indian girl was waiting for her mom to pay for their groceries. She was telling us that the snack that she was holding was "Sooooo good" and that she was "going to eat it ALL in the car." Too cute.


We were armed with our lemons and bread. We were ready. Until we were about to make dinner. I looked on a website on how to care for your tagine pot, and it said that it should be seasoned prior to use. Meaning it needed to be coated with olive oil, placed in the oven, and baked for an hour and 1/2 or 2 hours. Hmmm, I guess we'll be eating at 8:00 tonight.


We finally did eat at about 8:00, and it was delicious. It was quite an adventure to get to the final point, but it was worth it. The different spices all come together and make a wonderful looking and tasting dish:

The recipe prep actually wasn't too bad, either. We definitely will make this again. Especially now that the tagine pot is seasoned and all set to go. We're ready.