ugly, delicious grub

 Wow, spaetzle is so easy to make.  Where can I get a spaetzle macher?  Skipper?  Oh yeah, you don't read heckasac, do you?  I over nutmegged this because I didn't measure but I kinda likes it.  The finished dish was too ugly to show here but it involved onions and sausage. More cooking crap after the jump.  Finches tonight at the Javalounge!

 I was lucky enough to be able to check out the revised Paula Wolfert Foods of Morocco at the UC Davis library.  Basically if no one requests it I can keep it forever.  I got some saffron as a Christmas present, so here is some saffron water I made.  Nothing shows my terrible photography skills as much as this picture.  This looked so beautiful but here it looks like stomach contents.

 Here are some preserved Meyer lemons in oil that I made two years ago!  I was a little worried I'd kill us if I used them but I'm still alive!  I did not confide my fears to smiller.  Close call.

 So to make this dish, you sautee some chicken legs and thighs in some olive oil, skin down, for a few minutes.  Then, you take them out and sautee onions and garlic for a few, then you add a little water, the preserved lemons, the saffron water, some ginger and some aniseseed.  I used fennel seed.  Then boil.  Then add the chicken on top and put a lid on it and gently simmer for 25 minutes. Preheat oven to 325.

 Then add a bunch of fennel and green olives and kinda mix it around in the sauce without disturbing the chicken too much.  Keep covered and it goes into the oven for 30 minutes.  If you use an extremely heavy cast iron you may burn yourself, like I did.

 I got this wine at 58 degrees.  I think it goes extremely well with Moroccan food.

 Moroccan salads take a little getting used too.  For one thing, it appears that not all of the dressings include oil.  This one has orange juice, orange water, sugar, lemon and cinnamon.  I was supposed to use Ceylon cinnamon but I don't have it.  It was good but the orange water is somehow soapy without tasting like soap at all.

 Maybe if you use more expensive orange water it helps?

 Either way, it was interesting to dress a salad without oil.  I may try it again.

 Wolfert has a good tip to briefly broil the chicken at the end to crips up the skin.

This looks ugly, too but the chicken was very tender and flavorful.  I served it over quinoa.