Make this pungent Moroccan tagine with root vegetables on a weeknight and be instantly transported to the fragrant markets of the Maghreb.

This version is salty and rich in vegetable flavors. There’s not as much sweetness as you usually find in vegetable and chicken tagines with prunes, raisins and nuts, instead salted lemons and olives add a slight tanginess. A trio of starchy root vegetable: sweet potato, parsnip and turnip make the stew hearty and delicately absorb the flavors of spices like cumin and turmeric.

A tagine is a North African stew that also refers to the cone-shaped clay pot it is traditionally cooked in. Moroccan tagine pots are beautiful to look at and relatively inexpensive and easy to find, but you don’t need one to make this recipe, any heavy pot with a lid will do. The stew should cook for at least an hour and is even better when made ahead of time.

The true star of this dish is the flash-cured lemon. Don’t be afraid to eat the rind! By simply simmering lemon slices in salt water, the toughness is leached out and the rind becomes pleasantly chewy. The rinds are then finely chopped and added to the stew before it simmers to get that distinctly North African spicy lemon flavor.

Moroccan Tagine with Root Vegetables and Couscous with Pine Nuts

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 whole lemon, sliced into thin half moons
½ cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon dried coriander
4 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large carrots
1 medium sweet potato
2 medium turnips
2 medium parsnips
1 large yellow onion
1 cup pitted green olives, sliced
1 14 oz. can chickpeas, drained
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley + more to serve
1 10 oz. box of plain instant cous cous
¼ cup pine nuts

Directions  

First make the flash preserved lemons. Add the lemon slices to a small nonstick skillet with ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons salt and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the rinds become soft. Place the lemons and their juices in a bowl to cool, then finely chop.

Prepare your vegetables by peeling and chopping the carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, sweet potato into ½ inch cubes.

Toast the spices in a large pot or Dutch oven: over medium-high heat, add 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon turmeric, ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper and 1 teaspoon coriander and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Remove to a plate and crush with the back of a wooden spoon and add 1 teaspoon of salt.

In the same pot, heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Cook the onions first for 4 minutes on their own. Then add the garlic, the spice blend, tomato paste and chopped lemons with their juices. Stir a few times to combine, then add all the chopped vegetables and the can of chickpeas. Add 6-8 cups of water so the vegetables are covered by at least 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, bring 2 cups of water to rolling boil. Add the couscous, stir, cover and remove from flame to sit for 10 minutes. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and toast for 3 minutes until they just start to burn. Toss in the couscous and parsley.

Serve 1 cup of couscous in a shallow bowl and spoon the tagine on top with lots of liquid. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Related on Eco Salon

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New Ideas for Cooking with Root Vegetables 

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Photos by: Ally-Jane 

The post Moroccan Tagine Recipe with Root Vegetables and Couscous appeared first on EcoSalon.

Moroccan cooking inspired by the streets of Marrakesh.

The best tagine I have ever had is the one I cooked myself while attending a cooking class in Marrakesh, Morocco. It’s probably also the only proper tagine I have ever had. Raja (the cook), who really did most of the work that day, also led me carefully and demonstrated every step in how to make traditional Moroccan dishes such as salad, Berber bread and chocolate-layered semolina pancakes. I watched and learned. Smelled and ate. It was absolutely my best day in Marrakesh.

The day started at an indoor market in Mellah (one of the neighborhoods inside Medina) where I could pick meat and vegetables for the cooking lesson. The market had everything from meat (even live chickens), vegetables, bread and milk. We got some beef, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, chili and olives for the tagine and some apricots, eggs and dark chocolate for desert.

The salad we made was really simple and fresh. Just finely chopped onion, cucumber, yellow pepper and tomato. Seasoned with a splash of olive oil, salt and freshly chopped mint.

The beef tagine was cooked in traditional ceramic tagine cookware on low heat for about three hours. At the bottom we arranged onions, garlic and chopped fresh cilantro. The cookware was placed on the stove and the heat was set to low. The meat was placed on top and spices (ginger powder, cumin, paprika, salt and black pepper) were added at the edges around the meat. When the meat had been turned once, we arranged carrots, potatoes, zucchini, one whole chili, ½ lemon, olives and parsley on top. Lastly we poured in a mixture of both olive and sunflower oil. Before the tagine “hat” was placed on top, a little water was added. Now and again we scooped up the cooking liquid and poured it over the vegetables and meat. In this way all ingredients got a nice taste of the spices without moving them around.

The Semolina Berber Bread  we made was baked on top of the stove in a skillet. In Morocco, bread is  served with almost any meal during the day and a must when having tagine. Raja’s recipe used only semolina flour but I stumbled upon some breads in the city that seemed to have a mixture of semolina and wheat flour. Unfortunately they were not as nice. Our local deli (a hole in the wall) in Kasbah sold something that looked like a rye version of the bread.

The sweet dessert semolina pancakes were really the thing that won my heart and also something that was new to me. These pancakes should not be mistaken for the more well known pancake, begrhir. Begrhir is a yeast based semolina pancake that is often served for breakfast with honey. These pancakes are baked on only one side and the yeast create decorative holes on the surface. Raja’s dessert pancakes were sweeter and made with baking powder. They create similar decorative holes but are baked on both sides.

Below I have tried to translate Raja’s semolina pancake recipe as best I could. Raja used a typical Moroccan teacup when measuring the ingredients, so her cup measure was slightly less than a standard measuring cup. My recipe is as close as I could come!

Sweet Semolina Pancakes
Serves 2-4 people

One egg
½ cup sugar ( I used sucanut)
½ cup milk (+ more if batter is too thick)
¾ cup semolina
One teaspoon baking powder
¼  sunflower oil (optional)*

Zest from one lemon**
One teaspoon ground cardamom**

I don’t really remember the order Raja mixed the ingredients together but I did it this way: Whisk egg and sugar until well blended before adding the milk. Mix together semolina flour and baking powder. Add the semolina mixture to the batter and whisk well together (make sure there are no lumps). Add the oil, lemon zest and cardamom. Let the batter rest for 15-30 minutes before baking the pancakes.

Heat up a frying pan with some neutral oil (if using nonstick you don’t need any oil in the pan). When the pan is hot lower the heat to medium. Spoon up some batter in the pan with a sauce ladle (You may need to add more milk to the batter if it’s too heavy. It should be fairly easy to pour into a pan). When the pancake has nice decorative holes and starts to get firm on top, flip the pancake over. The other side should now have a nice brown color. Press down the pancake with your spatula so the pancake doesn’t rise. Continue until done. Repeat until batter is finished.

It may take some time to get used to how much batter you need for every pancake. A finished pancake should be about 1/8” thick.

Serve the pancakes with sour cream and seasonal fruit and berries for breakfast or brunch. I loved it with a simple apple & orange fruit salad spiced with mint and chopped pistachio. The pancakes can also be done as Raja’s desert, layered with melted dark chocolate (she added some neutral oil to the chocolate) and topped with fresh mint and fruit of your choice. Serve it cool when the chocolate is firm.

*Raja used some neutral oil in the batter and fried the pancakes in a non-stick frying pan. As I didn’t use a non-stick pan I learned that the pancakes got a little greasy with oil both in the batter and in the pan.  They still tasted great but got firmer and easier to handle with oil only in the pan.
**Raja didn’t flavor her pancakes with cardamom and lemon, instead she used 1-2 teaspoons vanilla sugar. I just didn’t have any at home when re-creating the recipe. Both versions are equally delicious.

If you planing to go to Marrakesh and want to participate in a cooking class, I can warmly recommend Raja’s class. Contact Jean Peres at Riad Dar One for details and booking.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

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