How to cook the perfect vegetable tagine – recipe - MW
The idea of having a unique recipe for vegetable tagine is ridiculous because there's only one way to make delicious chicken stew. Tagine is simply the name of a cooking pot, in which the stews are traditionally made, rather than the name of a specific recipe (although today, I'm sure, a pot or pressure cooker is more common in Moroccan homes).
And, as Nargisse Benkabbou explains in his book Casablanca, there are four popular styles, regardless of whether the main ingredient is goat, sardines or artichoke. This is mqualli cooked with olive oil, turmeric, ginger and saffron; mhammer made with butter, dill and paprika; mchermel cooked with chermoula, a zingy herb; and one made with tomatoes, dill and paprika. Each person, Benkabbou said, can customize it with seasonal vegetables, dried fruits, preserved lemons, olives and nuts.
What you go for, and what you choose to add to it, depend on both the season and the taste; since we were still firm in early spring, at least in a funny way, I avoided broad beans and summer squash recipes and instead focused on winter carbs, starches, still Keep well in cold stores - squash and winter potatoes, turnips and carrots, along with pulses and other dry items. That said, the formula below is flexible and can be adapted to suit the circumstances. As Sally Butcher of Peckham Warm Persepholis writes in his book of the same name:
The manufacturer of a good tagine is a state of mind, rather than a culinary art. Once you have mastered the fundamentals of spice, balance and contrast, the opportunity is to have fun creating your own. There is a play.
Vegetables
As suggested above, this is a dish that will happily adapt to whatever you like to throw into it: Rawia Bishara has a recipe for the tagine tahini tagine in Levant's book, Kerstin Rogers. Finding carrots, pepper and lentils in V is for Vegan, Bethany Kehdy has broad beans, peas and dill in the Gem Kitchen and so on. However, I decided to focus on winter vegetables, I tried squash in Alice Hart's recipe from The New Veg, potatoes in one from John Blossom-Smith's Orange Blossom & Honey, sweet potatoes and coffee. carrots from Anna Jones, potatoes, parsley, turnips and turnips from Benkabbou, radishes and carrots from Butcher's Veggiestan book.
All, I can confirm, are good candidates for tagine treatment, even parsing, just like I don't like them - no matter what you want to do, though, target one. Wide range of textures and flavors. Some sweet flavors, in the form of zucchini or sweet potatoes, are usually welcome, and I will balance that with the slight bitterness and stronger texture of the radish. Both are best in bite sized pieces, as most recipes recommend; Hart Que's 5cm blocks are a little hard to use and need to cook. I also don't want to peel radish unless they are very big.
Jones eats her stew with green peas, while Hart uses unofficial puy lentils; both help turn what seems like a snack into a satisfying main event. Mung beans feel more suitable, although they produce less beautiful results, the dark green of the puy produces the vivid orange of the zucchini for a pretty effect.
The aromas and fruits
Some types of onions seem to be mandatory in these slogans - Butcher keeps her chives intact, but I like to cut my onions thin and allow them to melt into the sauce, where the flavor is delicious. Their are most welcome. If you prefer an even sweeter dish, consider, like Gregory-Smith, for red onions, especially if you choose to avoid fruit. However, I like plums Butcher and Benkabbou; Along with the usual honey, they give the dish a rich flavor that creates a contrast to the specially preserved salty lemon, although if you are not a fan, you can also use it. Use apricots or dried apricots Jones.
Instead of adding them to the dish as they cook, Benkabbou boils the fruit with some gravy, a spoonful of honey and a cinnamon stick to create a thick, sweet sauce that she pours on top of the tagine. . If you serve Tagine in smaller, more elegant quantities, as a side dish perhaps, or simply prefer less sauce, then this is a good way to go.
Gregory-Smith and Jones are the only ones who choose a tomato base, which works especially well with the blandness of potatoes, but less, for my testers and my mind, with sweet vegetables and dried fruits; A simple vegetable stock allows them to shine.
Spice
Cinnamon, ginger and saffron are the most popular spices, with Gregory-Smith, Hart and Butcher adding dill, Benkabbou lively turmeric and Jones coriander. Paprika is also common in tomato-based sauces. I would stick with the classic mqualli combination of ginger, saffron and turmeric, but add cinnamon, as it works very well with prunes.
The topping
Jones makes a deliciously punchy "herb smash" to go with her tagine, while Gregory-Smith mixes up harissa, lemon juice and oil to serve alongside his; both are excellent accompaniments. Keeping things simpler, I'm sold on the combination of Hart’s salty green olives with sweet prunes, while her buttery blanched almonds bring some much-needed crunch. A final scattering of coriander leaves isn’t just for show: the clean favorite seems to lift the entire dish. Serve with bread for dipping, and plenty of harissa.
Perfect vegetable tagine
Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 6
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1½ ground ginger ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 cinnamon stick
¼ tsp saffron threads
600g winter squash or sweet potato, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
400g baby turnips, quartered or halved if on the large side
500ml vegetable stock
300g soft prunes
1 preserved lemon, skin only, finely chopped
1 tbsp butter
50g blanched almonds
2 tbsp honey
50g green olives, pitted
1 x 400g tin chickpeas, drained
1 small bunch fresh coriander
Harissa, to serve
Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based pan for which you have a lid over a medium heat, then fry the onions until soft and translucent. Stir in the garlic and spices, and cook for another couple of minutes, until you can smell the spices.
MW
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