Moroccan braised chicken legs with olives and preserved lemon

This recipe is from All About Braising by Molly Stevens. I know, summer isn't exactly the best time of year to braise. I mean, who wants to have their stove going for hours on end when it's already hot outside? But I've wanted this cookbook for a long time, and I just found it for cheap, so I'm braising in the summertime. We'll see how long I keep this up, the weather is still pretty moderate here. Anyways, this dish is chicken legs that are braised for about an hour with onions, garlic and a spice blend of ground ginger, paprika, toasted cumin, red pepper flakes and saffron. Towards the end of the braise, green olives and preserved lemon are added. This was my first time cooking with preserved lemons. The cookbook has a recipe to make your own, but that takes three weeks. So I bought a jar of whole preserved lemons at the grocery store. For this recipe, one preserved lemon is rinsed thoroughly, and the flesh is removed and discarded. The peel is cut into small strips and added to the chicken mixture. I have to admit, my husband and I thought the preserved lemons smelled a little like a lemon cleaning product, but they tasted fine in the end. The chicken is finished with chopped parsley and cilantro.