Chicken stew with fennel

I tasted this recipe many years ago at the house of a friend who was born in Morocco. He is a musician and amateur cook who often produces brilliant menus. Fennels were on sale this week and I got two nice big ones, so I called him for the recipe. He graciously shared it with me but after the call I realized that I have some ingredients missing. I still decided to go ahead with the dish and, although the end result was not quite like the memory of the dish I had at their house, I did end up with a very tasty tagine like casserole that the whole family enjoyed. So much so the even though I did take a photo during the cooking, I never got around to take another one with the food on a plate. Here is my recipe:

3 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 large fennel bulbs (called bisbas in Morocco)
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoons grated ginger (or 1/2 ts powder)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/8 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/8 teaspoon Ras El Hanout
fresh ground pepper, to taste
1 to 1 1/2 cup water
handful of parsley tied into a bouquet
Stuff I did not have:
1 or 2 handfuls of red olives
1 preserved lemon, quartered and seeds removed

This is how the stew looked halfway through the cooking process.



I cut the chicken breasts into strips. The fennels I quartered, cut out the bottom rooty part (and ate them raw - yum), then I sliced them across into finger width strips.

First I heated the oil and quick fried the chicken slices on relatively high heat, in two batches. I removed them onto a platter. When I was done with the second batch, I ended up with a lot of little chicken morsels in the oil. I added to the pot the fennel seeds, stirred them a bit to let them release their fragrance. I dumped in the finely chopped onion, sprinkled the leftover spices over it, and I sauted it on medium heat until it started to show a few golden bits.

Then I added the fennel. I did not have the Moroccan spice mix, so I just sprinkled in a little extra of what I had: cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg and cayenne. By that time the bottom of the pan started to turn brownish from the leftover chicken matter. While stirring, I managed to scrape up most of the stuck morsels, as you can see in the picture.

When the fennel started to soften, I added the chicken and poured water over it to cover up to about 2/3 of the stuff in the pot. At this point I covered it and let it stew until everything got cooked. At the end I adjusted the taste, adding a little extra salt, and served the stew over rice. Of course the real thing would have been eating it with khobz, a crusty Moroccan bread, but besides the fact that we did not have any, two of the family members are also gluten sensitive, so rice it was. Overall, it was a success, that is why I have the recipe up here... :-)