Rhonda from Dining Alone has a “Best Thing I Ever Made” feature where she highlights a favorite recipe each week from her archives. In October, she shared this stew as the best soup she’s ever made. All I had to do was take one look at her totally delicious picture (please, go look, and grab a napkin to catch the drool) to know I had to make it.
My sister’s best friend, Margo, married a Moroccan man (that’s them up there with the Twinkies during a Toot and Twinkies game night…but that’s another story for a different day) and she introduced me to their cuisine after she learned to cook it from her sister-in-law. Her Moroccan Chicken Couscous is so so delicious, and this stew has very similar ingredients so I was fairly certain I would love it.
Love it? No, I’m obsessed with it. If this soup were a person, it would have filed a restraining order on me because I stalked it for three nights in a row, made inappropriate noises while eating it, and almost cried when it was gone. I might have separation anxiety. Moroccan Turkey Stew, please don’t leave me! Come back!
So anyway, you should try this stew. And please invite me over for dinner when you do. I promise I’ll keep the inappropriate noises to a minimum.
Slow Cooker Moroccan Turkey Stew
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Kosher salt
4 skinless, bone-in turkey thighs (about 4 pounds)*
1/2 medium butternut squash, cut into 2-inch chunks
2 15.5-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes with juices, broken up
1 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup golden raisins
8 medium carrots, cut into 11/2-inch pieces
3 medium red onions, halved and cut into wedges
2 whole dried red chiles
1/2 lemon
2 cups fresh cilantro, including leaves and some stems
1 cup fresh parsley
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
*You can also use bone-in chicken thighs, which is what I opted to use since I couldn’t find turkey legs.
Combine the allspice and 3 teaspoons salt in a small bowl. Season the turkey thighs with half the salt mixture in a 5-quart slow cooker.
Toss the squash, chickpeas, tomatoes, apricots, raisins, carrots, onions and chiles with the remaining spiced salt. Pour the vegetables over the turkey (the cooker will be full; arrange the mixture so the lid fits. And don’t be like me and think you can fit extra veg in because you can’t–trust me.). Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
Spoon the vegetables and broth into bowls. Remove and discard the turkey bones and place the meat on top of the vegetables.
Juice the lemon; pulse with the cilantro, parsley, garlic, cumin and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor. Add the oil and process until smooth. Serve the stew in bowls; drizzle with the cilantro sauce.
*Veronica’s note: your cilantro sauce will probably not be as green as mine (compare it with Rhonda’s picture) because I didn’t measure it and probably used twice as much as I was supposed to. I didn’t care, it was still phenomenal.
Recipe source: Food Network, as seen on Dining Alone
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Disclaimer: I know I said I wasn’t going to apologize for my bad photos, but I do want to explain that I took these with zero natural light–all I had was the light from the light bulb overhead in the bedroom because for some reason, that is the brightest room in our house. So I think they’re pretty good, considering. Except for the swampy green blobs. That’s not cool, but hey, this is real life up in my kitchen and swampy green blobs happen.
