tagine

[puzzled54]

I have seen a really nice tagine pot. Has anyone used one, and does anyone have any veggie recipes for them? Thanks.

[nickmo]

For a veggie tagine dish:

- prep the veg - courgettes, onions, squash, carrot, aubergine or whatever combination you like.
Saute the veg with garlic and spices (cinnamon and cumin are good to use) plus a little mint and some sugar. Add some fuit - firm banana, raisins, apricots.....

Turn into the tagine, season, place coveredin hot oven for 20 mins. Serve with couscous fritters and salad...

For a more hearty option, add cooked chickpeas, some boiled diced potato, some other herbs to bump the flavours a bit and wop in a bit of tomato puree and a touch of veg stock too.

A green veg version with rice? - chop some chard with paprika and sweated onions with garlic, and season well. Place in the tagine with the uncooked rice with enough water to cook the rice too, cover, place in hot oven for 20mins or so.

You can use lentils, frozen peas, okra, green beans, various other pulses - whatever goes in your veggie casserole will work nicely in the tagine too - just spice it up a bit with some chillies if you like too, some parsley and corainder for regional variations.

yum......just add some flat bread and zahter (make your own or buy it ready to use) dip......

Hope that helps..

[puzzled54]

Thank you. When I had tagine in Morocco, I'm sure the veg were resting on cous cous. Do you know if you can just put cous cous or rice and some stock in the pot and let it cook thru with the veg?

[nickmo]

Suggest do not mix the couscous until you serve - it takes 3 mins to cook.

- measure the quantity you want into a bowl, add the same amount of boiling water, stir, cover and leave to heat through. Add a dash of olive oil and fork the crumbs free then add a seasoning - mint, lemon zest, raisins, diced apricots, mushroom, cooked fine dice veg, a spicey sauce or whatever.....

Serve with the tagine in the middle of a heap of the couscous.

An alternative method with the couscous you can try is:

warm the grains with some hot water, breaking up the pieces so it is free running. Place the moist grains in a colander lined with cheesecloth or use a seive, cover and steam over a (veggy) casserole so the couscous cooks over the stew - not in the stew itself. When done - 20 mins or so - lift out the couscous, add a dash of oil or melt some butter and run this through to moisten the grain and serve in usual way.

Couscous takes so many flavours - sweet, nutty, herb, spicey etc really well and as a salad grain it is also nice in the summer.

Hope this helps..

[topogigo]

What excellent answers Nickmo!