Moroccan chicken with chickpeas and olives

This is the kind of forgiving, one-pan braise that made North African cooking famous: chicken, chickpeas, preserved lemon and green olives simmered slow until the sauce is deep and glossy. The olives do real work here — salt, brine and bitterness holding the whole dish together.

Every Mediterranean and North African kitchen has a version of this dish, and they are all built on the same insight: braise chicken slowly with something salty, something sour and something aromatic, and you get a sauce far greater than its parts. Here the salty note is green olives, the sour is preserved lemon, and the warmth comes from ras el hanout, the North African spice blend whose name means « top of the shop » — the best a spice seller has to offer. It is a genuinely easy dish that tastes like you worked far harder than you did.

The recipe

Moroccan-style chicken with chickpeas and olives. A slow one-pan braise, warm with ras el hanout. Prep about 15 minutes, cook about 55 minutes, serves 4 over couscous.

Ingredients

• 8 chicken thigh cutlets, skin and bone on
• 2 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
• 2 tbsp ras el hanout (or a warm Moroccan spice mix)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 can (400 g) chopped tomatoes
• 2 tbsp chopped preserved lemon rind (pith and flesh discarded)
• 500 ml chicken stock
• 1 can (400 g) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• About 75 g green olives
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
• Couscous, to serve

Method

1. Toss the seasoned flour with 1 tbsp of the ras el hanout and coat the chicken all over.
2. Heat the oil in a large deep pan over medium-high heat and brown the chicken in batches, 2–3 minutes a side, then set aside.
3. Lower the heat to medium, add the onion and cook 2–3 minutes until soft.
4. Stir in the remaining ras el hanout, the tomatoes, preserved lemon, stock and chickpeas, then return the chicken so it is just submerged; add a splash of water if needed.
5. Reduce to a low simmer and cook gently, uncovered, about 45 minutes, until the sauce has reduced and the chicken is tender and cooked through.
6. Stir through the olives and coriander, taste, and season carefully — the olives and lemon are already salty. Serve over couscous.

Notes: Ras el hanout and preserved lemons are sold in delis and Middle Eastern shops. Add the olives near the end so they keep their bite rather than going soft and dull.

Why the olives matter here

It is tempting to treat the olives as a garnish, but in a braise like this they are structural. Green olives bring three things at once — salt, brine-sourness and a faint bitterness — that cut through the richness of the chicken and the starch of the chickpeas and stop the whole thing tasting flat and heavy. Take them out and the dish sags. That is the real lesson of North African cooking with olives: they are a seasoning as much as an ingredient, closer to capers or anchovies in their job than to a bowl of nibbles.

Choosing the right olive

Use a firm, tangy green olive with real character — a Moroccan Picholine, a Spanish Manzanilla, or a good cracked green olive from the deli counter. Avoid the soft, pale, ripe-black canned olives dyed to uniformity; they have almost no flavour to give and will vanish into the sauce. And unless you enjoy a surprise at the table, buy them pitted, or warn everyone they are not. A whole, characterful green olive that holds its shape through the braise is exactly what you want.

Tips for a better braise

• Add the olives near the end so they keep their bite and brightness.
• Season last and lightly — the olives and preserved lemon bring plenty of salt.
• Use bone-in, skin-on thighs for a richer sauce than breast will ever give.
• Make it a day ahead if you can; like most braises it is better reheated.

Moroccan chicken with olives: common questions

An original recipe in the North African braise tradition, developed for olives101.