Le Creuset & Moroccan Stew

Long blog silence, yet again. This time chalk it up to the general busy-ness of life, plus an Armistice Day commemoration in Ieper followed by a long weekend to Champagne. I will get to all that (hopefully!), but first a quick post about Christmas, Le Creuset, la cocotte, and cooking.

I have a few pieces from Le Creuset, the venerable French cookware maker, in my batterie de cuisine--a giant moule à clafoutis (ceramic pie plate) and a pair of heart-shaped ramekins that I received as a birthday gift--but that's it. I eye other pieces whenever I'm in a cooking store, but haven't bought anything else until now because, well, they're expensive. However, I happened to learn from my friend Maisie that there is a Le Creuset factory store not that far away from us (±2 hours), in Fresnoy-le-Grand, France. In fact, it is not just any factory store, but THE original factory and birthplace of Le Creuset! Our friends stopped at the store on the way to Champagne, and their trip sounded so nice that we decided to do the same a few weeks later.



Here I am standing outside the store holding a very heavy bag!

Le Creuset produces many products, but is most famous for its line of enameled cast iron cookware. Interestingly, this iconic French company was actually founded by two Belgian 'industrialists' (a casting specialist and an enameling specialist) who set up their foundry across the border in Northern France in 1925 to take advantage of transportation routes for raw materials.



Now, why are we posing with this box? That brings us to the exciting part of the story. This box was holding our new cocotte (French oven aka Dutch oven aka heavy iron pot), and we wanted to show Troy's parents since they gave it to us as an early Christmas present!!! (Many thanks, again, Dennis and Sharon for the fabulous gift!)


Cocotte unveiled!

Le Creuset's most famous color combo is cerise et dune (aka cherry red for the outside, with a sand-colored interior). As you have seen in numerous posts, cherry red is our 'signature' kitchen accent color, so of course we had to get the cocotte in cerise! To inaugurate the new pot -- in all its 12.5 pound(!) glory -- I decided to make a lovely, fragrant, and delicious Moroccan chicken stew.



Loaded with vegetables, dried fruit, and spices, beyond the eponymous chicken, this recipe is a recent arrival to my kitchen, but one that promises to become a staple.



Red onions softening in our pretty red cocotte.



Before: Layers of goodness. The recipe calls for just black raisins and dried apricots, but this time I also added golden raisins and prunes. (Oh yes, poor ol' uncool prunes are actually delicious, especially in this type of dish.)



Et voila: After several hours simmering on a very low temperature, we have the finished stew. Serve it up with some couscous, toasted pine nuts, and a scattering of fresh cilantro, and dig in! Or, as the French more elegantly put it, bon appetit!