Quicky Quicky Chicky Chicken Tagine

 

 

I bought a tagine once. It was half price and to be honest it isn't very Moroccan looking; maybe I will buy one of those exotic looking glazed lapis blue affairs sometime but at the moment mine is just cream coloured and sits on the top of my cookbook shelf - it's a kind of  homage to the real thing, but not the real thing; not quite.

And it is a bit like that with this recipe. It isn't your full on, heady with spice tagine which tantalises the senses, but it kind of does the job when you haven't got the time to devote to the slow steady cooking that a real tagine might require (I realise that once all the ingredients are in, the magic takes place whilst I am away doing something else; my presence isn't necessarily required, of course, but when I fall in the house at 5pm or whatever, I need to have a meal that is going to be served before 8pm, or else the biscuit tin gets it...) so this is a good enough homage to Morocco whilst you are in your kitchen in the UK, dealing with kids and homework and the washing and....(insert other menial and but sadly necessary tasks here).

This recipe is loosely based on the one I found on a loose page of a leaflet that came with a food magazine. It looks as though it might have been 'Good Food' magazine, but other than that, I know little. My alterations are that I doubled the onion content, put in some ras el hanout spice seasoning in to the sautéing onions and used chicken stock instead of water. With some couscous this was really, really rather nice...

 

Quick Chicken Tagine

 

Ingredients:

 

2 tbsp olive oil

8 skinless boneless chicken thighs, halved if large

2 onions, chopped

2 tsp grated fresh root ginger

2 tsp ras el hanout

150ml chicken stock

pinch saffron or turmeric (I used saffron)

1 tbsp honey

400g carrots, cut into sticks (which I would have used but I didn't have any!!)

small bunch parsley, roughly chopped

lemon wedges, to serve

 

Method:

 

 

Heat the oil in a large, wide pan with a lid, add the chicken, then fry quickly until lightly coloured. Add the onion and ginger, then fry for a further 2 mins. Add the ras el hanout and cook out until it becomes fragrant.

 

 

 

Add the chicken stock, the saffron, honey and carrots, if you have any that is, season, then stir well. Bring to the boil, cover tightly, then simmer for 30 mins until the chicken is tender. Uncover and increase the heat for about 5 to 10 mins to reduce the sauce to the consistency you require. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over.

 

 

 

I served this with (forgive me!!) ready made couscous salad which you just zap in the microwave. And it's as good as anything I could make from the packet. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Out of Africa - Moroccan Tagine

Anyone would think I wanted to be somewhere else. Well, somewhere warm would be a start but seeing as food takes me to place I can't always get to, then it's definitely time for tagine.

So, Morocco. I love its extremes: heat; colour; spice. And I love its heady food. A tagine is something that is so easy to make and its evocative scent envelopes your senses as it cooks. I think some people have an aversion to the whole fruit and meat thing, and whilst I am a fan of this matching, I wasn't sure that Lola and Finn would be, so with this in mind, this slightly tweaked recipe fitted the bill. If you prefer a punchier tagine, then I would suggest being slightly less judicious with the spicing, or adding a little paprika or chilli.

Lola and Finn gave this one the thumbs up.

 I hope this recipe transports you to the souk or at least makes you feel like rocking the kasbah.

Serves 8 (or 6 hungry people!)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp olive or argan oil

1.5kg lamb. Boneless leg is what I recommend.

2 onions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, crushed

3 tsp ground cinnamon

3 tsp cumin seeds

3 tsp ground ginger

3 pinches of saffron

2 x 400g can chick peas, rinsed and drained

100ml lamb stock. (I used a cube)

3 x 400 can chopped tomatoes

1 butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded and cut into large chunks

2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

2 tbsp chopped coriander

2 tbsp chopped mint

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and brown the lamb in the pan in batches, deglazing the pan with a little water between batches. Add more oil if necessary. Set aside the browned mince and the reserved deglazing liquid to add back to the pan later.

Add the remaining oil to the pan and fry the onion over a medium heat for 5 minutes or so until lightly golden. Then add the chopped garlic and gently fry until fragrant. Then add the spices and stir for 30 seconds.

Return the meat to the pan with deglazing juices. Add the chick peas, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for an hour or so, stirring occasionally.

Add the squash, then the herbs, reserving a handful for the final garnish. Cook the squash for about 15 minutes then uncover the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes to thicken the sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Scatter over the remaining herbs and serve, accompanied by couscous.

Kefta Mkaouara, or a simple, tasty Moroccan dish of lamb meatballs and egg in a tomato and cumin sauce.

 

 

Yum. Moroccan food. I love its heady, exotic smells and the vibrancy of colours as the completed dish is brought to the table. This dish, which is remarkably simple to make and quite economical, does not disappoint on either score. Phill's words were "Something smells good!" as he walked in from another trying day at work, and it did. The smell of lamb and cumin cooking together is instantly mouthwatering. And when the dish is completed, the dark red tones of the sauce contrasted with reassuringly golden yolks, and the flecks of verdant coriander set the dish off beautifully. You can't help but want to dive in. We did. Lola and Finn in particular were big fans of this dish which makes it even more of a winner in my book.

 

This dish is adapted with care from the original Rick Stein recipe in his wonderful book 'Mediterranean Escapes'. I chose to moderate the heat in the dish by using a milder paprika rather than the hot stuff as recommended in the original recipe. Phill and I would eat this with relish with a little more kick but the children would be less willing, but I don't think the dish suffered at all. If you season the meatballs and the sauce judiciously then what you might lose in kick you more than make up in terms of flavour. The other tweak I made was to substitute coriander for parsley. In my mind, lamb, cumin, tomato and coriander are an amazing combination and made to be together. Plus, I love coriander and need very little excuse to use it. Enjoy!

 

 

  Kefta Mkaouara, taken from Meditteranean Escapes by Rick Stein

 

Serves 4

Olive oil

 

4 fresh medium free range eggs

 

salt and pepper

For the meatballs

1 onion, chopped, (or blitzed in the food processor)

500g minced lamb

2 tablespoons (or more if it's your thing) finely chopped fresh coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

 

1/2 tsp paprika, and you could use hot if you want more of a kick, but for children, I decided to err on the side of caution.

For the sauce

2 small onions

 

2 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes (I use, for preference, tinned cherry tomatoes but it is by no means obligatory)

 

1 tsp ground cumin

 

1/2 tsp paprika (hot if you are of a mind to...)

 

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

 

2 garlic cloves, crushed

More coriander for garnish or to put into the sauce if you like.

 

Method:

 

I am lazy. I used my food processor to blitz the onion and then added the rest of the meatball ingredients as illustrated. You can obviously do this by hand by chopping the onion before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Wet your hands (crucial!) and then shape the mixture into small balls.

Heat3 tbsp olive oil (and be prepared to add more if necessary) in a tagine (lucky you!) or a frying pan or if you're like me, my paella pan (again).

Brown the meatballs briefly on all sides, remove and set them to one side.

For the sauce, using the same pan you browned the meatballs in, add the onions to the pan (with extra oil if necessary) and saute gently until very soft but barely browned. Then add the chopped garlic and fry until fragrant.

Add the remaining ingredients for the sauce to the onions and leave to simmer for approximately 15 minutes. The sauce should concentrate and at that point you can add the meatballs back to the sauce.  

Taste the sauce for seasoning.

Make four little wells in the sauce and break four eggs into each well.  I space them out in a north, south, east and west arrangement.

 Place a lid on the pan (or, like me, some foil over the top of the paella pan) and over a low to moderate heat, allow the eggs to cook. A runny egg is nice but the dish does not suffer when the yolk is firmer in my opinion).

Serve, at the table, with some carbohydrate, maybe couscous, or flatbreads, or good quality bread such as an olive bread or sourdough or something. 

If you serve at the table, there are plenty of opportunities to dunk your bread in the pan after you have finished eating. Heaven!