Moroccan Grilled Salmon

This recipe came from the Food Network Kitchens.

Moroccan Grilled Salmon

Ingredients:

½ cup plain yogurt

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the grill

2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed

1½ tsp ground coriander

1½ tsp ground cumin

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

4 (6 oz.) salmon fillets

Directions:

Stir together the yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, coriander, cumin, ¼ tsp salt, and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Pour half of the sauce into a large resealable plastic bag; cover and refrigerate the remaining sauce. Add the salmon to the bag and turn to coat with the marinade. Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the bag over once.

Preheat a grill to medium-high. Remove the salmon from the marinade and blot off excess yogurt with paper towels. Lightly oil the grill and add the salmon; cook, turning once, until browned on the outside and opaque in the center, 4 to 6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. Serve with the reserved yogurt sauce.

Makes 4 servings.

This was really easy and really good. Jim absolutely loved the sauce. I didn’t add sauce to mine; the flavor on the salmon itself was enough for me.

The weird thing is, I don’t think I will change a single ingredient the next time I make this. Wow! That has got to be a first! The only thing I might do differently is bake the salmon instead of grilling it. It stuck really badly to the grill and kind of fell apart as I tried to turn it. But then after re-reading the recipe in preparation for posting it, I realized that I forgot to add the 1 tbsp of olive oil to the marinade/sauce. Maybe that would make it stick less to the grill? I don’t know.

Even though there isn’t a long list of spices, the balance is just right and it definitely is true to Moroccan flavors. I’ve made several Moroccan dishes before and we have found it to be a flavor profile that we really love.

I wasn’t feeling well (first trimester, yay), so I went the super easy route and baked potatoes in the microwave as a side for this. If I was feeling just a little bit more ambitious I probably would have made couscous and Moroccan Carrots.

Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken

I got this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. I’ve made it twice now and have changed it up a bit. Here’s my amended recipe.

Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (½ cup)

4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1” chunks

½ cup pitted dried plums (prunes)

12 oz. butternut squash, peeled and cubed

2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth

4 thin chicken breasts (2 large), cut into large chunks

2½ tsp curry powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup couscous

1 cup water or reduced-sodium chicken broth

Directions:

In a 4 to 5 quart slow cooker combine onion, carrots, plums, squash, broth, chicken, and seasonings. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours.

When ready to serve, bring water or broth to a boil in a small saucepan. Add couscous, remove from heat, and cover with lid. After five minutes, remove lid and fluff couscous with a fork.

Remove chicken, fruit, and vegetables from slow cooker with a slotted spoon. Serve over couscous. Spoon some of the cooking juices on each serving.

Makes 4 servings.

It came with nutritional info, but I have changed it so much that it wouldn’t be even close to accurate.

The original recipe called for 8 bone-in chicken thighs instead of the breasts. I don’t usually have thighs on hand and Jim prefers breast anyway, so I thought I would try it with the breasts. Works just fine. The way I make it, it’s more of a stew. I think the original is supposed to be a large piece of chicken with some vegetables on the side. But I like it better this way. It’s easier to serve.

Also, the addition of butternut squash is mine. Butternut squash is traditional in Moroccan stews (see my Lamb Tagine recipe). Meijer sells butternut squash, already peeled and cubed, in handy little 12 oz. bags. It’s in the produce section next to pre-washed spinach and broccoli florets and stuff like that. So handy! I like butternut squash, but I am such a wimp that I physically cannot peel or cut the darn things because they are so hard. They are the biggest pain in the butt to prepare. So I am willing to pay a little bit extra and take the help from the store on this one. The squash is really good in this dish. It doesn’t get all mushy like it did in the tagine that I made. It stays in chunks.

The other thing I changed was that I doubled the spices from the original recipe. It was suggested by a reviewer on the BHG site and we really like Moroccan spices so I tried it that way. Perfect. I think it would be pretty bland left at the original amounts.

The original recipe didn’t say to serve it over couscous, but it was kind of a no-brainer for me. Couscous is also very traditional in Moroccan cooking and it makes the perfect bed for the flavorful stew.

If you are home while making this, keep an eye on it. Since I use breasts instead of thighs, it probably doesn’t need as much time as stated. I keep forgetting to write down how much time I leave mine in. A lot of it depends on how firm you like the carrots. I like mine with a little bite left to them.

Going into the slow cooker. So colorful and pretty!

Spiced Plums (or Pears!)

This was the dessert I chose to make for my Moroccan-themed meal.  It was the only one I found online that didn’t involve some weird ingredient like rosewater or orange blossom water.  As you might have guessed from the picture, I didn’t use plums.  Apparently plums are not available in Michigan in December!  So I had to use pears.  Having never cooked with pears before, I had no idea what variety to get.  I tried Anjou.

Spiced Plums 

Ingredients:

6 medium red plums or purple plums

½ cup pineapple juice or apple juice

3 tbsp packed brown sugar (divided)

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp cardamom

⅛ tsp cumin

1 pinch nutmeg

⅓ cup light sour cream or nonfat sour cream

cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°. Prepare a 2 qt. baking dish with a good amount of cooking spray.

Prepare plums by slicing in half and removing pits. Place in the baking pan cut side up.

Combine juice, 2 tbsp of brown sugar, and the spices in a small bowl. Drizzle spiced juice over the plums.

Bake the fruit for 20 minutes or until the plums are tender. Note that actual cooking time will vary according to the ripeness of the fruit.

In a small bowl combine the sour cream with the last tablespoon of brown sugar.

Place plum halves in a serving bowl. Dot with sour cream and sprinkle of cinnamon.

Makes 6 servings.

It was okay with the pears, but I can’t wait to try it with the plums.  The pears did not really get soft at all, even though I let them bake a lot longer than the recipe called for.  I don’t know if it would be this way with all varieties of pears, or if the Anjou are firmer than most.  I am not really very familiar with pears at all.  Like I said, it was okay; just not as good as if the fruit had softened up during baking.

I think the next time I make it, I will also try increasing the amount of the glaze.  I didn’t think it was quite enough.  And a lot of it runs off the fruit onto the bottom of the pan, so a little extra would be good, I think.

Lamb Tagine for Slow Cooker

This was the main dish of my Moroccan-themed meal.  A tagine is a slow-cooked stew.  It’s also the name of the vessel it’s traditionally cooked in.  I found a recipe for the slow cooker.

Lamb Tagine for Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

1 ½ lbs. butternut squash, peeled and cut into 2” chunks

2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed with press

1 can (15 – 19 oz.) garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup chicken broth

⅓ cup raisins

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

2-3 lbs. boneless lamb shoulder or leg, cut into 1” chunks

½ cup pitted green olives

Directions:

In a 6 qt. slow cooker, combine squash, tomatoes, onion, garlic, beans, broth, and raisins. In a small bowl, combine coriander, cumin, cinnamon, salt, and ground black pepper. Rub spice mixture all over lamb; place lamb on top of vegetable mixture. Cover slow cooker with lid and cook on low 8 hours or on high 4 hours.

Stir olives into stew.  Serve over couscous.

Makes 6 servings.

It was pretty good.  The squash cooked down completely, as did the raisins, apparently.  We couldn’t taste them!  And the beans held up really well.  I thought they would have turned to mush by the time it was done.  But they didn’t.  The only thing I did differently from how it’s written here is that I totally forgot to add the olives in at the end.  Oops!  Oh, and I didn’t have as much tomatoes as it called for; I think I only had one plum tomato.

A note on the lamb: I couldn’t find a hunk of boneless lamb shoulder.  I ended up using lamb leg (that I found at Sam’s.)  It was really fatty, so I took the time to trim it really well before cubing it.  Here’s an idea of how fatty it was: when I bought it, it was 4 pounds; after trimming, it was about 2.7 pounds.  Yikes!  That would have made a total mess out of the stew.  So be sure your lamb is lean.

Moroccan Carrots

I needed a vegetable side dish for my Moroccan-themed meal and found this recipe on Recipezaar.

Moroccan Carrots

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp brown sugar

⅓ tsp ground cinnamon 

¼ tsp ground cumin

1 dash cayenne

1 ½ cups carrots, peeled and julienned (about ½ lb.)

⅓ cup orange juice

2 ½ tbsp dried currants, soaked in hot water

fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over moderate heat.

Reduce the heat to low, add the sugar, spices, and carrots and stir for a few minutes.

Add the orange juice and the currants with some of their soaking liquid; bring to a boil.

Quickly reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the carrots are tender.

Add pepper and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Makes 4 servings.

These were very good. I forgot about them as I was waiting for the glaze to reduce, so they got a bit dark on one side. But it didn’t ruin them.

Interesting tidbit about this recipe: I found out when I reviewed it on recipezaar that the woman who originally posted it is a fellow LCMS pastor’s wife! There were about four different Moroccan carrot recipes on that site that I was deciding between. What a coincidence that I would pick hers!