This very
easy and tasty meal is cooked in a traditional earthenware tagine.
The name
tagine or tajine refers to the pot as well as to the dish. Mine comes from Morocco
and I use it on the gas; they can also be used in the oven or over coals. The
dome-shaped top promotes the steam to return to the bottom of the pot, this
gives the special taste to a tagine dish.
When you
don’t have a tagine you can use a Dutch oven or another heavy bottom pot, but
it’s really worth buying one, because cooking in clay pots gives a very
distinctive taste.
Because it’s
an earthenware pot you have to take care of it putting it on the gas. The first
time using it, I recommend soaking the pot in water for at least an hour. Then
put it on the biggest gas flame you have but put the gas down low.
Slowly heat up the tagine. This is to prevent your tagine to crack. Mine
has a crack from the one time I was a bit impatient to heat it up, but it works
still very well.
Cooking in
a tagine is slow-cooking, so all flavours can develop. And when the pot is warm
you just add your ingredients all at once or slowly, bit by bit, like in my
recipe.
After every addition, put back on the lid!
So let’s
cook!!
Heat up your tagine slowly
Put on the bottom of a tagine:
1 onion,
cut roughly
420 g cleaned
pumpkin, in 3 cm cubes
2 tbsp
olive oil
1 tin of
chickpeas or 200g cooked
Black
pepper
4 cloves
pinch of
saffron
about 1-2
cm of water
Bring to boiling point and let it simmer with the top
on for 10 minutes
Then add:
1 courgette
in big chunks
4 chopped
tomatoes
Big handful
of parsley
Big handful
of coriander
100g frozen
peas
After 10 minutes sprinkle with:
Freshly
grated nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne, ½ tsp of ground ginger, ½ tsp of cinnamon
and salt to taste. mix in carefully and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.
Serve and sprinkle with some more parsley and
coriander on top of brown basmati or, I you can, with couscous!!
I love to
give it some heat by adding a scoop of home-made harissa.
Enjoy your
tagine!
Zet de tagine op en
verwarm langzaam
Leg op de
bodem van de tagine:
1 ui, grof gehakt
420 g schoongemaakte pompoen, in flinke stukken
2 el olijfolie
1 blikje kikkererwten of 200g gekookte
wat zwarte peper uit de molen
4
kruidnagels
plukje saffraan
1-2 cm
water
Breng
zachtjes aan de kook en laat, met het deksel erop ongeveer 10 minuten stoven
Voeg dan
toe:
1 courgette in flinke stukken
4 grof gehakte tomaten
flinke handvol peterselie
flinke handvol koriander
100g diepvries erwten
bestrooi na
weer 10 minuten met:
versgeraspte nootmuskaat, cayennepeper naar smaak, ½ tl
gemberpoeder, ½ tl kaneel en zout naar smaak. Meng voorzichtig en laat nog 5
minuten sudderen.
Serveer en bestrooi met nog wat meer peterselie en koriander
met bruine basmati rijst of, als je mag, met couscous!!
Ik hou van een beetje pittig dus neem ik er een schepje
home-made harissa bij.
Eet smakelijk!
