Moroccan Fare: Chicken Tagine With Couscous

From the blog: http://chatteringkitchen.com  Tagine: a dish which put Moroccan cuisine on the world culinary map. Quite literally, tagine is the name given to a deep earthenware pot with a large conical cover, similar to a top-hat. The essence of Moroccan cuisine is to let the meat slowly stew inside the tagine, infusing all the flavors while preventing them from escaping. For an authentic North African dinner, you can even serve in the tagine, once the meat is cooked. Defined by the process of slow simmering, Moroccan cuisine is full of spices, albeit not hot. In short, the flavors of the food is brought forth by the use of paprika powder, cayenne pepper, coriander powder and cumin powder. As soon as you lift the lid of the tagine, or your saucepan, the air will instantly be scented with the fragrance of the cooked spices.   No Moroccan meal can be complete without the inclusion of couscous. What steamed rice is to Thai food, couscous is to Moroccan cuisine. Just like its style of cooking, Moroccan cuisine has soaked in influences from Arab, Mediterranean, Moorish and Berber cooking and slowly simmered its way to creating its own identity. Credit for this authentic recipe goes to my sister, I had borrowed it from her years ago for my mother’s birthday dinner once. Today, 5 years on, I decided to give it another go.