Chicken M’qualli Tagine With Olives and Preserved Lemon

Bold, sweet, fragrant—but also sour and bitter with olives and preserved lemon—m’qualli carries a myriad of flavors that make it a special and comforting meal.

Overhead view of Chicken M’qualli Tagine on a platter

Serious Eats / Jen Causey

Why This Recipe Works

  • Marinating the chicken with spices and lemon juice beforehand results in more tender, flavorful chicken.
  • Using a regular cooking pot instead of a traditional tagine allows for a more consistent and even cooking process that prevents moisture from evaporating too early.

This recipe—chicken m’qualli with olives and preserved lemon—is one of the most common ways of preparing a m’qualli in Morocco. As a child, I wasn’t a big fan of meat, but I became enamored with this tagine because of deghmira, the flavorful sauce of reduced onions. I loved it so much that I used to eat it with a spoon, and my mother would prepare the dish for me each time I visited from university.

Bold, sweet, fragrant—but also sour and bitter with the addition of olives and preserved lemon—m’qualli carries a myriad of flavors that make it a special and comforting meal. The word “tagine” refers to both the earthenware pot with a conical lid as well as the dish prepared within the pot—a meal that has become one of the most emblematic of all Moroccan dishes. Hundreds of years ago, North African nomads used the conical cooking vessel known as a tagine as a portable oven, enabling them to cook any time while on the move.

The base of a traditional tagine is wide and shallow, with a conical lid that sits on the base.Together, the two components constitute a sort of clay oven that is placed on a low flame for cooking. While the food slowly cooks, steam rises into the cone, condenses, then drips back down into the dish, keeping the ingredients constantly basted, moist, and tender. This cooking process and the resulting meal are very similar to stew and braises.

Close up view of Chicken M’qualli Tagine

Serious Eats / Jen Causey



用锅今天的挑战是他们come in so many styles. There are the traditional clay tagines, but there are also cast iron tagines commonly sold at cookware stores that match the form of the original if not the material. These differences end up making a big difference in how the tagine cooks, which makes it difficult to write a recipe that works across all formats. For example, a dish’s cooking time can vary a lot depending on the type of tagine used: A proper old-fashioned clay tagine will result in a significantly longer cooking time, while a cast-iron pot in the shape of a tagine will take just a touch longer than a regular pot. This could also explain why nowadays, even many in Morocco prepare their tagines in other dishware, including casseroles, Dutch ovens, or even pressure cookers.

While the tagine is commonly described as a Moroccan stew, it’s important to note that within Moroccan cuisine, there are more specific categories of tagine that indicate the way they are prepared and/or the ingredients used.只是as there are avariety of curries in Thai cooking, there are also different types of tagines within Moroccan cuisine.

Each type of tagine can be prepared with a choice of meat, fish, and/or vegetables, and can be customized with dried fruits, preserved lemons, and olives. The single element that most tagines have in common is the fact that they are all onion based. Onions add flavor and sweetness, but they also bring texture: as the onions cook, they thicken into a jammy sauce called deghmira.

There are four main categories of tagines in Morocco:

  • M’qualli: This is the tagine featured in the recipe below, and is cooked in olive oil and seasoned with turmeric, ginger, and saffron. M’qualli has a vivid deep yellow color and can be made savory or with a bit of sweetness. A common way to prepare m’qualli is to remove the meat from the pot once it’s cooked, set it aside, then let the onions cook and turn into deghmira.
  • M’hammer: This type of tagine is cooked in butter and seasoned generously with sweet paprika and ground cumin, spices that lend it a brownish-red hue. “M’hammer” comes from “ahmar,” the Arabic word for red, and refers to the color of the sauce and the use of paprika in the seasoning. The meat in m’hammer is cooked twice: first in the pot with the spices, then it’s removed and either shallow-fried or roasted.
  • M’chermel: This type of tagine is seasoned with chermoula, a marinade of olive oil, sweet paprika, ground cumin, lemon juice, cilantro, parsley, and garlic.
  • Tomato tagine:Tomato-based tagines are typically cooked in olive oil and seasoned with ground cumin, paprika, and garlic. Towards the end of the cooking process, eggs and/or meatballs are added to the tomato sauce.

While these four kinds of tagines are the most common, there are others that are more unique, such as m’rouzia (a sweet and savory lamb tagine with raisins) or k’dra (a savory tagine with chickpeas).

What makes a tagine special is the way the spices transform during the cooking process. The most important ingredient for this to happen properly is time: Making a tagine means giving the spices enough time to slowly steep and meld. The longer a tagine cooks, the more complex its flavors will be.

Recipe Details

Chicken M’qualli Tagine With Olives and Preserved Lemon

Prep20 mins
Cook2 hrs 25 mins
Marinating Time2 hrs
Total4 hrs 45 mins
服务4 servings

Bold, sweet, fragrant—but also sour and bitter with olives and preserved lemon—m’qualli carries a myriad of flavors that make it a special and comforting meal.

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For the Marinade:

  • 2tablespoons(30ml)extra-virgin olive oil

  • 3tablespoons(45ml)fresh lemon juice(from 1 lemon)

  • 1teaspoonground turmeric

  • 1teaspoonground ginger

  • 1/2teaspoonDiamond Crystalkosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume

  • 4mediumchicken leg quarters(about 12 ounces; 340g each)

For the Tagine:

  • 1/4cup(60ml)extra-virgin olive oil

  • 4largeyellow onions(10 ounces; 280g each), sliced

  • 1/4cup(20g) packed finely choppedfresh cilantro

  • 4mediumgarlic cloves(25g), peeled and grated or minced

  • 1teaspoonground turmeric

  • 1teaspoonground ginger

  • Smallpinchsaffron threads, if desired

  • Kosher saltand freshly ground black pepper

  • 2/3cup(160ml)homemadeor store-boughtlow-sodium chicken stock

  • 1/2cupfinely chopped preserved lemon(flesh and rind), finely chopped (3.5 ounces; 100g)

  • 3/4cupred-brown pitted olives, such as Kalamata (4.2 ounces; 120g)

  • 硬皮面包或couscous, to serve

Directions

  1. For the Marinade:In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, ground turmeric, ground ginger, and salt. Add chicken leg quarters to marinade, and, using your hands or a spatula, turn to evenly coat chicken. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or up to overnight.

  2. For the Tagine:In a 5.5-quart pot or Dutch Oven, heat olive oil over medium-low. Stir in sliced onions, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to soften, 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Add cilantro, garlic, ground turmeric, ground ginger, and saffron (if using) to pot. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are very soft, about 5 minutes. Remove chicken legs from marinade and add to the pot in a single layer, nestling them into the onion mixture. Pour in stock and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover pot, reduce heat to low, and simmer gently until the chicken is fully cooked and registers 165ºF (74ºC) in the thickest part, 55 to 65 minutes.

  4. Using tongs, carefully remove chicken from the pot to a plate. Loosely cover with foil to keep warm and set aside.

  5. Stir preserved lemons and olives into the sauce and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until all the excess liquid has evaporated and the sauce has reduced to a thick, jammy consistency and the oil separates from the onions and pools on the surface, 45 to 55 minutes. (When onions and oil separate and thicken into a jammy sauce, this is referred to as “deghmira” in Morocco.) Taste sauce and adjust seasoning, adding more salt if necessary.

  6. To serve, return chicken legs to the pot to warm through in the sauce, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately with crusty bread or warm couscous.

Special Equipment

5.5 quart pot or Dutch oven

Make-Ahead和存储

The dish can be made 3 days in advance and kept refrigerated.

Moroccans often reheat the chicken and the sauce separately: gently warm up the sauce in a saucepan on the stove and reheat the chicken in the oven with the broiler turned on to allow the chicken skin to crisp up.

Nutrition Facts(per serving)
754 Calories
45g Fat
38g Carbs
52g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4
Amount per serving
Calories 754
% Daily Value*
Total Fat45g 58%
Saturated Fat 9g 43%
Cholesterol243mg 81%
Sodium1308mg 57%
Total Carbohydrate38g 14%
Dietary Fiber 7g 25%
Total Sugars 15g
Protein52g
Vitamin C 46mg 231%
Calcium 146mg 11%
Iron 5mg 30%
Potassium 1161mg 25%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)