It was the memory of Dahane’s cooking, he said, that led him to develop the tagine offered at Boulud Sud, his sophisticated Mediterranean French restaurant in Manhattan. A version of it has been on the menu since the restaurant opened in 2011. Chicken serves as the protein, scented by cinnamon and coriander, turmeric, ginger powder and cardamom, then combined with tomatoes, saffron and a little stock. Preserved lemons and olives added at the end provide bite. It is a dish steeped in the flavors of North Africa but also of France, a taste of Marrakesh in New York.
Tagines are often cooked with root vegetables and dried fruits. Boulud, who famously grew up on a farm near Lyon, in east-central France, determined he would use cauliflower. The dish he tasted from Dahane’s kitchen was made in Tours, he said, not too far from Brittany, where most French cauliflower is grown.
“It is maybe a little more French approach to the tagine,” he said, cautioning that smart cooks must blanch the cauliflower before sautéing it. “That makes them a little more tender and moist and, frankly,” he said, his voice lowering conspiratorially, “more digestible.”
(Once you’ve blanched the cauliflower, it takes only a few more seconds to shock the tomatoes in hot water as well, helping them to release their skins and making them 300 times more beautiful in the finished dish.)
The preparation is otherwise uneventful. Combine the spices in a dry sauté pan, then heat them until they toast and release their flavor. Season the chicken with the rub, then sauté the pieces until golden and place them in a tagine pot or Dutch oven. Do the same with the blanched-and-dried cauliflower, then use the pan to sauté some onions and grated ginger with tomato paste and, eventually, chicken stock. This sauce, reduced, goes on top of the chicken and cauliflower. Transfer the Dutch oven to the oven for a half-hour, then add the tomatoes, green olives and preserved lemon, and cook for an additional 30 minutes or so, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has achieved ambrosial perfection.
Garnish with cilantro leaves, and serve with couscous. “You’ll notice that we didn’t use any fruit,” Boulud said, “but one could add a piece of date or raisins, or dried apricot in little slivers that would give a little tartness. It could be very good.”
Boulud seemed to think that a recipe for tagine ought always to be in flux. “We continue to balance the spice mixture at the restaurant,” he said. “You could add a pinch of cumin. Tagines are always evolving.”
