Moroccan chicken and chickpeas. That’s a pretty broad description. This version is a warm dish of onion, garlic, spices and peanut butter. The chicken stays crispy and the chickpeas get meltingly delicious. It just works. And it works well.
Moroccan chicken and chickpeas is one skillet dish that I’ve been making forever. It’s not particularly authentic, I don’t think. But it’s really good. One of those homey style dishes that hits the spot.
I adapted the recipe from a small lunch cafe years ago. They called it Moroccan chicken. Good enough for me. I upped the spice some and added some of the Ethiopian berbere chili powder. That’s wonderful stuff. If you’ve never tried it, I urge you to. It’s a mix of spices and Ethiopian chilies and it’s absolutely haunting.
The one trick in this recipe is to keep the chicken on top of the chickpeas when it’s in the oven. The juices from the chicken drip into the chickpeas. The skin stays crispy. Everything comes out perfect.
moroccan chicken and chickpeas
Ingredients
- 4 chicken legs or breasts
- 1 onion diced
- 2 carrots diced
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 1 Tbsp curry powder
- 2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2-1 tsp Ethiopian chili powder - can substitute less cayenne
- 4 plum tomatoes diced. Canned is fine.
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
- 2 15 oz cans chickpeas
- salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 375F.
- Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper.
- Heat enough oil in an oven-proof skillet large enough to hold all the ingredients.
- When the oil is shimmering, place the chicken, skin side down and brown. This should take 3-4 minutes.
- Turn the chicken over and brown another 3-4 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the pan and spoon off all but 3 Tbsp of the fat.
- Add the onions and carrots and cook until the onions are translucent and just start to brown.
- Stir in the garlic and cook a minute more. Add the tomatoes and cook another minute or so.
- Add 1/4 cup of stock, the curry powder, cumin powder and Ethiopian chili powder and stir. Now add the peanut butter and stir to combine.
- Add the remaining stock and chickpeas. Place the chicken overtop and bring to a simmer.
- Place the skillet in the oven and cook until the chicken registers 175F in the thigh. This takes 20-30 minutes.
- Serve chicken overtop a mound of chickpea curry.
Love this recipe! I made a Mexican dish from Glebe last week and it was great too. My husband is beginning to think I’m a gourmet cook. I’ve bookmarked this website and I’m going to be trying lots of recipe. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Sounds like you are a gourmet cook! Happy to share and delighted you are enjoying them.
I’m so happy with how this turned out. Its got big flavor for a simple recipe. I think this will be a regular for me. Hopefully next time I can scare up that special pepper online somewhere. But even with just cayenne it was tasty.
Awesome to hear. I actually made this one last week myself. It is simple but such a satisfying meal (at least for me)!
Hi… I was wondering where the plum tomatoes fit in to the recipe?
Thanks 🙂
Recipe corrected. Thanks for the catch.
five stars. Delicious
So glad you like it. This one is a sleeper on the blog. I love it but nobody seems to get it. Thank you for commenting!