Moroccan Vegetable Tagine

The next dish in our Moroccan meal was a vegetable tagine (Tagine is the name of the recipe as well as the dish it is cooked in, rather like a casserole in the Americas. ) 

In 1984 I spent a lot of time at the Tagadirt hotel in Agadir, Morocco. A hotel that appears to still be going strong, despite...well, good for you Tagadirt hotel.  However we went to other hotels, and theaters for entertainment. Nothing like a production of Waiting for Godot with a big plate of couscous… I was young but I remember thinking, “Wow, this play is cr@p.”.  My opinion of the play has not changed in the slightest.  I did find a paperback copy of Waiting for Godot on the sink counter in a public restroom in Portland, Oregon about ten years ago and thought I would give it a shot as I had never read it. I thought that maybe there was something much more cerebral going on that I may have missed watching the play as a youth. A youth who was on holiday in North Africa and still wanted to go build sand castles so that I could then dig canals to the water and drown the “townspeople”…

I did come to the conclusion after reading it that perhaps my parents were not the best judges of appropriate content for children. A quick review of my life before I  arrived in the US, confirmed this. 

Anyway....Continuing the Moroccan feast here is a recipe for a rather simple vegetable tagine. If you have an eathernware tagine, use it and follow the directions for any regular tagine. Unfortunately I do not have a tagine at this time. So this is a stove top version.

Ingredients for four to six marshmallowy peeps. 

2 Large zucchini

2 Onions chopped

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

2 15ooz cans of garbanzo beans

1 14.5oz can of whole tomatoes

1 Cup of vegetable stock

1 Large red potato diced

2 Waxy potatoes diced

2 Teaspoons of cumin

1 Teaspoon of paprika

½ Teaspoon of cinnamon

1 Tablespoon ras al harnout (Moroccan Seasoning blend available at most big supermarkets and specialty stores)

3 Chopped green onions

Method:

Heat the oil in a large skillet, add the onion and garlic and sauté for three minutes. Add the spices and stir until fragrant, about one minute. Add the beans, tomatoes, stock and potatoes. Bring to a boil then reduce temperature to low cover and cook for twenty minutes until the potatoes are just tender. Add the zucchini and cook a further 4 minutes. Add the ras al harnout and serve sprinkled with the chopped green onions.

Serve with couscous or raisin rice: 

Ingredients for Raisin Rice: 

3 Tablespoons of butter or olive oil

½ Onion chopped

1 ½ Cups of long grain rice

2 ½ Cups of vegetable stock

4 Tablespoons of chopped parsley

¼ cup of raisins soaked din warm water for 10 minutes

1 Teaspoon of salt

½ Teaspoon of pepper

½ Teaspoon of allspice

½ Teaspoon of cinnamon 

Method: 

 

Heat the butter or oil in a skillet and cook the onion until transparent, add the rice and cook 1-2 minutes till coated in oil. Add the seasonings and the raisins and stir a couple of times till fragrant, add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce temperature to low, cover and steam for 15 minutes till rice is tender.

Sprinkle with paprika for serving.

Serves six happy peeps, or messed up peeps, like those peeps that get left in the glove compartment over the summer and you don’t discover them again until next Easter? Those are some messed up peeps.