Slow cooker Moroccan chicken

 

So many slow cooker recipes don't apply to my life. I'm not just talking about the kind that use canned soup as binders. I'm talking about the cooking time so many of them use. Clearly these recipes were not developed for those of us who work away from home all day and have to commute to get there.

But now that I'm temporarily commuting 14 steps to my home office, I thought it would open up some opportunities to try new recipes. Many are still not perfect for those trying to work set schedules from home, but with some advance prep work, I managed to pull this off on a weekday.

Moroccan chicken with apricots and almonds

From “The French Slow Cooker” by Michele Scicolone

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 large onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cups chicken broth

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons honey

1 cup dried apricot halves, quartered

8 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted

Chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

Method

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are golden, stirring often. Mix in spices and flour and cook for 1 minute. Add broth, lemon juice and honey. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened. Stir in apricots. (Make ahead tip: At this point you can cool the sauce mixture and refrigerate it until ready to proceed. Warm briefly before proceeding.)

Pour half the sauce into a large slow cooker. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and place in the cooker, overlapping slightly as needed. Pour remaining sauce over the top. Cover and cook on low for 2½ to 3 hours.

Taste sauce and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper as needed. Serve sprinkled with almonds and cilantro. 

Rating: A quite decent sauce. I think I let the chicken breasts go a tad too long since I tried to sneak out for a walk in between work and supper. I'd err toward the shorter cooking time depending on the thickness of your chicken breasts, since skinless chicken tends to dry out in the slow cooker even when bathed in sauce. Next time I might up the cumin component just  a bit and see how that goes. It serves 8, and it held up to reheating.

But really, my main take away is that I could make that sauce in advance, heat it up and quickly roast or pan-fry some chicken breasts and get better results with not much more investment of prep time. Which defeats the purpose of the slow cooker meal, I realize. I'd be ready to give up on chicken in the slow cooker, but then I remember a few gems like chicken bacon ragu and chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Or one of my favorites, Corsican chicken with sun-dried tomatoes. All of these feature bone-in chicken, which takes to a slow cooker treatment much more readily.