Chicken Tagine with Olives, Mushrooms and Potatoes (Tajine Zitoun) for One

Chicken Tagine with Olives, Mushrooms and Potatoes (Tajine Zitoun) for One

This chicken tagine recipe is my single-serving version of tajine zitoun, a classic of Algerian home cooking (zitoun is the Arabic word for olives). Two skinless chicken thighs, dry-fried mushrooms, potato and chickpeas simmer gently in homemade chicken stock, then green olives and a spoonful of fermented hot sauce go in for the last 15 minutes. A squeeze of fresh lemon finishes it. Serve it over lightly sautéed green beans, or with warm bread to mop up the golden sauce.

This is my version. Tajine zitoun is usually made with carrots, but I didn’t have any, so I used mushrooms and potato instead, and the last of a jar of chickpeas went in because they needed using. I usually dry-fry my mushrooms in a pan with no fat, which drives off their liquid so they brown and turn into intense, meaty bites before they go into the tagine. With my homemade chicken stock the sauce needed some colour, so I stirred in a generous teaspoon of tomato purée, and a spoonful of my fermented red chilli hot sauce gave it the punch I felt it lacked.

Mushrooms earn their place here for more than flavour. They are low in calories (and dry-frying adds none), they are a good source of antioxidants such as ergothioneine, and their fibre appears to feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut. If you like cooking with your microbiome in mind, you’ll find more ideas in my Gut Health Recipes hub. For the research behind all this, and the sun-drying trick I use to boost their vitamin D, read The Benefits of Mushrooms.

Chicken Tagine Recipe: Ingredients

Serves 1. Prep: 15 minutes. Cook: about 40 minutes.

For the tagine

• 2 skinless chicken thighs
• 70 g pitted green olives
• 3 to 4 medium brown mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 1 small potato, peeled and cut into 2 cm cubes
• 60 g cooked chickpeas, drained (a generous handful)
• ½ small onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp ground ginger
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 generous tsp tomato purée
• A pinch of black pepper
• A tiny pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp fermented red chilli hot sauce
• 1 fresh lemon (save 1 small strip of peel for cooking and use the rest for juice)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• About 250 ml warm homemade chicken stock

To serve

• A handful of green beans, thinly sliced
• A little olive oil and black pepper, for the beans
• Warm slices of buckwheat sourdough bread (optional)

Equipment: a tagine pot and a metal heat diffuser.

How to Make This Chicken Tagine Recipe

1. Dry-fry the mushrooms: Heat a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat with no oil or butter. Add the thickly sliced mushrooms and cook undisturbed for 1 to 2 minutes until they release their liquid, then stir occasionally until the moisture evaporates. Once they are deeply browned and have shrunk into meaty bites, remove them from the pan and set aside.

2. Build the aromatic base: Put the heat diffuser on the hob over a low heat and set the tagine base flat on top. Add the olive oil, onion, garlic, turmeric and ginger. Stir gently for 2 minutes to release the fragrance of the spices.
3. Layer the tagine: Nestle the chicken thighs into the centre of the spiced onions, turning them once to coat. Arrange the potato cubes, chickpeas and dry-fried mushrooms around the chicken, season with the pinch of pepper and tiny pinch of salt, and tuck in the strip of lemon peel and the bay leaf.
4. Simmer gently: Stir the tomato purée into about 250 ml of warm chicken stock and pour it around the inside edge of the tagine base. Never use cold liquid, as it can shock and crack the hot clay. Put the conical lid on and simmer gently on a low heat for 25 minutes.

5. Add the olives and hot sauce: Lift the lid carefully, away from the steam, and scatter the olives around the chicken. Stir in the tablespoon of fermented hot sauce, replace the lid and simmer for a final 15 minutes, until the potato is fork-tender and the chicken is cooked through. My olives weren’t salty, so I didn’t blanch them; if yours are very briny, boil them in water for 5 minutes and drain first.
6. Thicken and finish with lemon: Take the tagine off the heat. Crush some of the potato chunks and chickpeas against the side of the base with the back of a spoon to thicken the sauce. For a slightly thicker glaze, leave it with the lid off for 2 minutes. Cut the lemon and squeeze a generous splash of juice over the chicken, potato and mushrooms.

To Serve

The green beans were a last-minute thought, and they were worth it. Boil the thinly sliced beans for a couple of minutes, drain and dry them, then sauté them lightly in olive oil with a little black pepper. Spoon the tagine over the beans and take the bubbling base to the table on a heatproof mat.

If you’d rather have bread, tear off thick pieces of warm buckwheat sourdough and use them to scoop up the chicken, mushrooms and olives, mopping up the sauce straight from the clay. With bread, one thigh is enough.

Make It Stretch to Tomorrow’s Lunch

To make leftovers, add another ladleful of stock (about 90 ml) to the tagine, keep the second thigh back, and tomorrow’s lunch is sorted.

If you’ve enjoyed this chicken tagine recipe, you can buy me a coffee ☕ — it helps keep the site going.

Footnote

This chicken tagine recipe is featured in my Easy Chicken Dinner Ideas, North African Recipes and Mushroom Recipes hubs.
Find more recipes and food adventures here.
Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef