Casablanca

A few weeks ago I went over to a friend’s apartment for dinner and a movie—the first of (hopefully many) themed dinner and movie nights.  Same idea as a book club, picking out a movie and making a dinner that somehow ties into the location.  Somehow I had never seen Casablanca before, so we ordered it from Netflix and made a Moroccan dish to have while watching the movie.  The end result was a riff on a chicken tagine which was both healthy and delicious.  We decided not to follow a recipe and just used a general cooking method with whatever vegetables looked good at the grocery store.  That’s the beauty of this recipe; it’s so adaptable to your tastes and would be good with any combination of spices and vegetables.  Start by chopping your vegetables—here, we chose zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, leeks, new potatoes, and chickpeas.  Then, take chicken legs, thighs, and breasts, heavily coated them with a spice mixture of salt, pepper, cumin, curry, turmeric, and cayenne, and browned them in olive oil.  Remove the chicken, add one chopped onion and a couple garlic cloves, sautee vegetables, add the chicken back in with some broth, cover and simmer until done.  Once the initial chopping is done, it’s a very hands-off dinner, allowing for a glass of wine as everything cooks.  It is perfect when served over a bed of couscous or warm pita.

Casablanca was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  Granted I haven’t seen a movie in a while, but I loved it nonetheless.  The WWII-era expats living in Morocco, the corrupt Nazis, the drinking, the music, the clothes, the iconic quotes (“Here’s looking at you, kid”), the striking beauty of Ingrid Bergman… I guess there is a reason it’s always on those “best moves of all time” lists.  It made me realize that there are so many classic old films I haven’t seen and need to add to my list; Roman Holiday, Citizen Kane, The African Queen, La Dolce Vita… looks like I have a lot of move-watching to do.  And I’m sure I can come up with some food to go along with them.