Chicken With Olives and Preserved Lemon
Few dishes repay cheap ingredients as generously as chicken with olives and preserved lemon. It is the spirit of the Moroccan tagine: humble chicken, a handful of olives, a salted lemon, slow heat and patience. Get the balance right and it tastes like far more effort than it took.
The whole dish turns on two salty anchors — the olives and the preserved lemon — and on the patience to let cheap chicken go tender over low heat. Nothing here is expensive or difficult, but each of the two anchors has a right form and a wrong one, and both go in late for a reason. Choose them well, treat them right, and season with a light hand, and a few store-cupboard things become a golden, savoury pot that eats like a feast.
Choosing the olives and lemon
This dish lives or dies on its two salty anchors. For the olives, reach for a firm, green or cracked variety with real fruit and bite — a Picholine-style green or a meaty Greek green earns its keep here; soft black canned olives turn to mush and add nothing. Rinse them if they are fiercely brined so they season the dish without overwhelming it. The preserved lemon is the secret weapon: its rind, not the flesh, carries that mellow, almost floral salinity. Scrape out and discard the soft pulp, slice the rind into slivers, and add it toward the end so it perfumes the sauce rather than dissolving into it.
| Ingredient | Use | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Olives | Firm green / cracked (Picholine-style) | Soft dyed canned black olives |
| Preserved lemon | The rind, slivered | The soft pulp (bitter, salty) |
| When to add both | Toward the end, to perfume | At the start — they dissolve, turn bitter |
| Salt | Taste first; often none needed | Salting on autopilot |
| Cooking oil | Sound everyday olive oil to brown | Your best bottle (wasted in the pan) |
Building the braise
Brown the chicken in a good everyday olive oil, then soften onion, garlic and ginger in the same fat — that browned base is your flavour. Bloom saffron, cumin and a little turmeric, return the chicken, add stock or water and let it tick along gently until tender. Olives and preserved-lemon rind go in late; finish with coriander and parsley off the heat. Because the olives and lemon bring the salt, season the liquid cautiously and taste before reaching for more. Serve with bread or couscous to catch every drop of that golden, savoury sauce.
The salt trap
Here is the mistake that catches almost every first-timer: seasoning the dish as if the olives and lemon were not there. Both are heavily salted by their cure, and both give up that salt into the sauce as it reduces. Salt the braising liquid cautiously — or not at all — and taste before you reach for the pot. Between the brined olives and the preserved lemon, the dish frequently needs no added salt whatsoever, and a heavy hand at the start leaves you with a sauce you cannot rescue. Patience over low heat is the only real technique; restraint with the salt is the only real trap.
- Use a firm green or cracked olive, not soft canned black rings.
- Use the rind of the preserved lemon, slivered — discard the pulp.
- Add olives and lemon late so they perfume rather than dissolve.
- Taste before salting — often the dish needs none.
- Brown in everyday oil; save a raw drizzle of the best for the end.
Chicken with olives and preserved lemon: common questions
What olives are best for this dish?
A firm green or cracked variety with real bite — a Picholine-style or meaty Greek green. Soft canned black olives turn to mush and add little.
Do I use the whole preserved lemon?
No — use the rind, sliced into slivers, and discard the soft pulp, which is bitter and very salty. Add the rind late so it perfumes the sauce.
When should the olives and lemon go in?
Toward the end of the braise. Added early they dissolve and can turn bitter; added late they season and perfume without falling apart.
Why shouldn’t I salt the dish much?
Because the brined olives and preserved lemon already carry a lot of salt and release it into the sauce. Taste before adding any — often it needs none.
What should I serve it with?
Bread or couscous, to soak up the golden, savoury sauce that is the whole point of the dish.
Brown the chicken in your everyday cooking oil, but save a teaspoon of fresh extra virgin to stir through at the very end — raw, off the heat, it lifts the whole pot. And taste before you salt: between brined olives and preserved lemon, the dish often needs none at all. Patience over low heat is the only real technique here.
Based on traditional Moroccan tagine method, adapted for the home cook.