For #DecRecs, this Nigella Lawson soup:
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/slow-cooker-moroccan-chicken-stew
It has a few rarer ingredients you may not have to hand, but if you can find the preserved lemons, I don't think the saffron is essential.
It is a little bit spendy due to the amount of chicken, but it's a bit of a show-stopper. I think you could do a dinner party with this, a crusty bread, and some kind of mildly fancy salad.
(It does come out salty, so if that's not your taste, probably this is not your stew.)
@Betty oooh this does look good! alas for me being a person who only really cooks with meat in the "a small amount as a flavouring ingredient" kind of way
otoh this reminds me that I'm out of preserved lemons and need to make some more! (they're surprisingly easy to make, for people who don't have access to a store that sells them, or people who simply like to make preserves)
@soph_sol I mostly don't cook with meat, except occasionally when I do. I did try to think if I could figure out a way to make this vegetarian, but I can't think of anything obvious. Maybe one of those braised tofus that holds onto a lot of flavour.
(I did cut back the meat called for, tho. I don't know anyone who's eating 1⅓ chicken thighs on a regular basis.)
I have made preserved lemons before, but one time I succeeded and two times I've failed, which has made me wary! Do you have a recipe?
@Betty uhhhhh I have less a recipe and more a procedure! basically: take a bunch of lemons, scrub them thoroughly, and cut them into quarters. sprinkle some pickling salt into the bottom of a large glass jar. put a few of the lemon quarters in. sprinkle more pickling salt on them. add a few more lemon quarters. repeat till you reach near the top of the jar, squahing them down as well as you can while you go.
now get a long sturdy implement that can fit through the jar mouth and has a reasonably-sized bottom end (like, wider than a wooden spoon handle but not so wide it takes up the whole jar mouth) and really go to town with pounding and squashing those lemon quarters. the goal is to get them to release enough liquid that all the bits of lemon can be submerged beneath the liquid. this can take time and effort, depending on the juiciness of your lemons
[1/2]
@Betty when you have pounded sufficiently, make sure there are no air pockets remaining between/beneath any lemons. get a foodsafe plastic bag, put it into the top of the jar, and put lemon juice in it and seal the bag. this is your weight to keep all lemons submerged. you don't want any of your lemons sticking up into air! (you fill the bag with lemon juice instead of water so that if a leak develops in the bag, you won't get a situation where your preserves aren't acidic enough for safety)
(if you have a fermentation kit with a nice glass weight, you can use that in place of the bag of lemon juice! but I'm not fancy enough for that.)
then put a lid on the jar and stick it in the fridge. once a week for a month, pull it out and agitate the contents to make sure that the salt and bacteria are well distributed, then once again make sure your weight keeps all lemons out of the air, put lid back on, and stick back in fridge.
and at the end of the month you have preserved lemons!
[2/2]
@Satsuma @Betty I don't....I eyeball it. the recipes I read when I was figuring out how to make preserved lemons never gave useful info on how much salt to use either, so I just shrugged my shoulders and gave it a go! things should look pretty dang salty though. maybe in a one-litre (or one-quart) jar, use like half a cup of pickling salt?
oh, and another note, ideally you'd use a sterilized jar for making these, which can be done easily by sticking your jar into the oven for 15 min at 250°f, and use thoroughly clean implements for cutting and mashing.
and I think I actually usually leave a freshly-made jar on the counter for the first few days, to get the development going before I stick it in the fridge. I just don't like to leave it out for the full length of fermentation time (the way recipes often suggest) because it's easier to get growth of bacteria you don't want if it's too warm. and it'll still ferment fine in the fridge, it just takes a bit more time!