Tajine Madness. The winter of the slow cooked Moroccan ‘casserole’

This was one of our wedding gifts and I have had fun playing with it this winter. Tajine refers to both the pot used to cook meals in as shown above, as well as the dish. It is traditionally served with couscous, rice or flatbread (or all three). The idea behind the pots shape is that the steam rises to the top of the strangely shaped lid which then runs down back into the food, trapping in moisture and hence leading to a tastier result. The design also means the lid can be lifted off without burning your hand To be honest I don’t really know if there is any benefit to the tajines shape, or if a heavy cast iron crockpot or dutch oven would lead to the same result. The benefit of the modern tajines is that they can be heated directly over a flame so that meat can be browned before the stewing (this leads to a more complex flavour). Because of the long cooking times, cheaper cuts of meat can be used and the flavours have more time to develop.

I started off by following a recipe that came with the tajine – beef with dates and almonds.


This is a picture of my first attempt, looking quite retro with the boiled eggs on top! I found that this recipe led to an overly sweet tajine (probably shouldn’t have added the sugar AND the dried fruit they suggested) so decided not to follow any more recipes. The almonds on top provided a nice contrast to the rest of it though (texturally and flavour-wise).

The basic concept is to brown the meat, onions and fry the spices (often cumin, coriander and cinnamon, but I have played around with this) and then add vegetables, water or stock and other flavourings and simmer.

The chicken, preserved lemon and olive version above was more successful and great served with couscous, a salad, a yoghurt dip and some hot harrissa. I am now unfortunately out of preserved lemons so have to make or buy some more before I can play around with this recipe.


The fish tajine I approached a little differently and made a chermoula paste which I used to both marinade the fish and fry in the oil as the spice base. Using the magimix I also got as a present, it is very easy to make spice pastes, in this case a combination of onion, garlic, ginger, parsley, coriander, cumin, lemon and oil. I then made the stock base with some home made chicken stock and added potatoes and oven roasted red capsicum. The fish I only added in the last 10 minutes.

In the spirit of the casserole, this is great to use up old vegies in the fridge and is easy to put together and then leave on the stove for 1-2 hours. Once you develop your favourite/ preferred spice combinations, it is easy to get this meal on.

What’s your favourite tajine recipe?

Me and my BBQ

I love my BBQ. It is so simple to make dinner and there is very little cleaning up. Growing up in an arabic family with a mother who was scared of gas (?!) we only ever had charcoal bbq's which are so so nice as the meat gets that charcoal wood taste, but is more of a hassle to use and so we didnt have bbqs as often as I would have liked!

The first night we got our BBQ, I BBQ's some king prawns and made them into a thai-style salad as inspired by Jack from the blog 'eating with jack', and also made a bbqed whole barramundi stuffed with ginger, garlic, chilli, lemongrass and lemon. Such a simple dinner and so so good. Fresh flavours, a good mix of salt, sweet, spice and sour, and did I mention minimal cleaning up?

The next day I marinaded some lamb backstraps overnight in olive oil, garlic, lemon, cumin, corriander, a squiz of tomato sauce and some lemon myrtle for that Aussie touch. I served it with a couscous salad, and some BBQ'd eggplant, fennel and corn. To top it off I made a yoghurt dip with mint, cucumber and garlic. Very similar to the BBQ's of my childhood, though a lot simpler...

What I like about this new BBQ is that I have somehow roped Nathan into being the cooker of meat, so all I do is marinade the meat, make a quick salad, and then sit on our new deck chairs and wait for dinner!

Fennel - how I will miss you in summer!

I have a confession to make. I didnt know what a fennel looked like until 2 years ago! How i had never managed to eat this amazing vegetable for so long I do not know! I fell in love one Saturday morning wandering around the Richmond markets when i noticed a strange white vegetable with green frilly tops.

'Whats that?' ,I asked Nathan

'I dont know', said Nath

Enter old italian guy who laughs at us and tells us it is fennel. What do you do with it we ask. Salads, roast, pasta, everything! Feeling a bit silly we take it home, consult a few recipe books and enter into the wonderful world that is fennel. Since then we have used it salads, and pastas (especially combined with chorizo, mmmmm!) but by far our favourite recipe so far is the fennel bake which is especially lovely coupled with fish. And best of all, it is ridiculuously easy. I can't remember where I got this recipe for the bake from so sorry to the author...

Fennel Bake

2 bulbs of fennel

1 tin of tomatoes

parsley

1 large onion

3 gloves garlic

Parmasen cheese

bread crumbs

Cut the fennel into thin slices and fry in olive oil with the onion and garlic until soft. Add the tinned tomotoes, season and let simmer for around 10 minutes. Meanwhile grease a baking tray and preheat the oven to 200C. Add the fennel mixture to the tray with some chopped parsley, top with cheese and then breadcrumbs, and then bake for around 15-20 minutes until golden.

Oven baked red snapper in foil

1 red snapper cleaned and scaled

1 spring onion, slice thinly

garlic, ginger, chilli sliced thinly

fresh corriander

soy sauce

lemon

Wash and dry fish with paper towell. Make 4 cuts on each side of the fish in the fattest part of the flesh. Fill with sliced ginger, garlic, corriander, chilli and spring onion. In the cavity of the fish put in exra herbs as well as thinly sliced lemon slices. Pour soy sauce over fish and season well. Wrap the fish in 2 layers of foil to potect leakage, and bake in a hot oven (200C) for 20 minutes or until cooked.

Sorry about the terrible photos!

We ate these two dishes with steamed rice. The perfect meal!