ISO TNT recipes for Tagine

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urmaniac13

Executive Chef
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We just bought a Tajine (or Tagine), a Moroccan slowcooker made with clay. They look really nice, we used it a couple of times but were not sure exactly how to cook our foods properly, so basically ended up precooking most of them and let it simmer for some time (1-1,5hr). They came out very good but I am sure there are ways to cook everything all the way inside the Tajine.

The google search produced a lot of recipes using lamb which I don't eat, and chicken with bone-in bigger pieces, but I only cook filleted breasts. I would like to find some good recipes using chicken, fish or pork fillets, or something like meatballs. Also I have seen dishes served in tajines with cous cous or rice, when do you put them in, from the beginning or somewhere in the middle, or cook separately and toss them in afterwards? I wouldn't want them turning into sticky gooey mush after being cooked much longer than usual, or somehow remain crunchy, and I wasn't able to find a good info on the internet so far.

Does anyone have any suggestions/experiences with this particular cookware? I am all ears... tia!!:chef:
 
Urm - I have one and have only used it a couple times. The recipe I used I got off the net and can't find right now. I used Israeli Couscous - I prefer that texture versus the smaller. Mine was a basic chicken curry with onions, carrots. I think I browned the chicken and cooked at a lower temp to cook a bit, sauteed the onions and carrots, and frozen peas which I added towards the end, added the appropriate amount of chicken stock for the couscous plus some to make some juice along with the amount of curry you like. Then I just cooked it for about 20- 25 minutes or so the best I remember.

Once the onions and carrots were sauteed I added the couscous, chicken stock, curry, top with the chicken. About 10 minutes or so from being done top with the peas.
 
get a good Moroccan or Arab cookbook, or middle east at least. Recipes for Kafta (meatballs) and diced meat stews (where you can use pork or chicken if you like) abound. Enjoy the experience, and the delish food!
 
anything you stew, you can do ala tajine. They are very versitile though.

Here are two recipes that sound neat to me...

LEMON AND OLIVE CHICKEN
Yield: 4 portions

5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 onions, minced
4 cloves garlic, pureed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp each pepper, paprika, ground ginger
½ tsp turmeric
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 – 4 cups water
½ green olives, pitted, halved
1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeded
Heat 3 tbsp oil is saucepan over medium heat. Sauté chicken until light brown, turning several times. Remove and keep hot.
Add remaining oil to pan and sauté onions over medium heat for 6 – 8 minutes and stir in garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, ginger, turmeric, lemon juice and the water. Add chicken and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 – 1 ½ hours or until chicken is well done. Add water if necessary. Add olives and simmer for five minutes.
Transfer to plates garnish with lemon slices and serve.

FISH TAJINE
Yield: four portions

½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 kg salmon steaks or any firm fleshed fatty fish
2 onions, minced
4 cloves garlic, pureed
½ fresh coriander, finely chopped
1 small chilli pepper, minced
2 cups stewed tomatoes
1-cup water
1 tsp each salt, ground ginger
½ tsp each ground pepper and cumin
1 lemon quartered lengthwise and sliced into triangles
1/3-cup green olives pitted
Heat oil in heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium heat and cook fish for approximately eight minutes or less pending on fish. Stir in tomatoes, salt, ginger, pepper and cumin.
Cover and bake for 50 minutes or until done. Spread lemons and olives evenly over fish and bake for ten more minutes.
 
Thanks for the brilliant ideas which I can always count on from you folks!!:)
Thanks Elf for giving some indication for couscous cooking, I do have some larger morseled burghul, I may try with them with a bit longer cooking time.

Robo, I do have a decent middle eastern cook book... as I mentioned though, obviously their main fares are either lamb or bone in chicken cuts, not boneless skinless chicken breasts. However, I did find the recipe for kefta, I overlooked it as it listed lamb as its ingredient, but now I see probably it wouldn't hurt to substitute the meat with pork or beef (or mix of 2) mince. The recipe does sound delicious!

Tatt, both recipe sounds great and I will put both of them on the "to be tried" list!! Salmon in tajine, who would have thought!! yum! For the chicken recipe, unless I turned partially blind and somehow missed it, I don't see the chicken among its ingredients... can the fillets be used instead of drumsticks etc??
 
A tagine is a braiser. Breasts tend to be a bit too lean to stand up to braises long enough for the flavors to meld without the meat becoming tough. Thighs and legs have more connective tissue and seem to stand up better.
 
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Considering that the tajine is primarily a North African (Morroco & Algeria) cooking vessel, you are going to find most of the recipes are for lamb and chicken, which are the primary proteins of the region, and no pork recipes, for the obvious reason.

I have it on good authority that you can replace the lamb with veal of the same cut, though. No comments about pork were forthcoming but to me, cooking pork in a tajine would be the equivalent of putting ham and cheese on a bagel.
 
I understood perfectly why there weren't any pork recipes for tajine cooking. However as not particularly a religiously couscious person and among our acquaintances we can't think of anyone who may have a problem with that, I thought if it works technically why not try a little eclectic experiment... I have also used meatballs that contained beef mince in my curry, which turned out to be delicious.
BTW, I did try kefta a couple of weeks ago with some mixed mince (beef/pork), that came out really, really well, we loved it!!:-p
 
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