A few months ago, I saw an article about how to preserve lemons and was instantly intrigued. It looked so easy! There are only 2 ingredients (salt and lemons), a simple process and some patience required.  Well, a few weeks later, there was a sale on lemons at the grocery store, so I got 8 extra to try preserving. The initial process is easy and takes about 15-20 minutes to cut and salt and stuff the lemons into a jar. The hard part is the waiting! It takes about 30 days for the lemons to become fully preserved.

So, I had this jar of lemons sitting on the counter for about a month, and I would turn it and give it a shake every couple of days or so and think “I can’t wait til these are ready.” But then I lost track of time and forgot how long it had been! Last week I checked my Flickr for the date I took the picture of the lemons just after putting them into the jar and it had been about 5 weeks already! So, we decided it was the perfect time to try making some Moroccan-inspired chicken with olives and preserved lemons.

Chicken breast, sliced onions, diced tomatoes, potato wedges, kalamata olives and preserved lemons.

I didn’t really follow any recipe for this dish. Instead,  I cobbled together a meal with things that I felt would compliment each other nicely from what I had read about cooking with preserved lemons and the sort of  ingredients that are traditional in a chicken tagine.

I seasoned two boneless,  skinless chicken breasts and let them marinate for about 30 minutes.  In the meantime, I sliced an onion, cut 2 yukon gold potatoes into wedges and prepared the lemon. I used the rind of 1 whole preserved lemon, which I  rinsed under cold running water (to remove some of the salt) and sliced into strips.

I seared the chicken breasts on each side in a heavy skillet, then removed them before adding the onions so they could caramelize a bit. I added a can of diced tomatoes, then placed the chicken back into the middle of the pan and nestled the potato wedges around the chicken. I spooned a bit of the onions and tomatoes over the chicken and potatoes before throwing in a handful of kalamata olives and placing the slices of preserved lemon all over the top. Then I coverd the skillet and baked it at 400F for about 30 minutes, until the potato wedges were cooked through.

After removing the skillet from the oven, I first picked out all the pieces of preserved lemon. They had done their job of infusing the dish with a salty, citrusy essence, but they were still way too salty to eat. I also removed the chicken and potatoes and returned the skillet to the stovetop, where I reduced the sauce until it was thick. The onions had almost mleted into the sauce at this point and provided a sweetness to balance the salty bite of the lemons, while the olives absorbed some of the liquid from the sauce, which added an extra burst of flavor.