You say Tajine I say Tagine

A few years ago I discovered the joy of Tagines cooking a few fairly basic recipes out of a couple of cook books such as The Cooks Companion - Stephanie Alexander which has a fantastic lamb and quince tagine. This love of Tagines inspired me to take a side trip on my most recent trip to Europe to cross over into Africa and spend some time in Morocco where I tried as many different tagines (or as is interchangeably used in Morocco Tajines) as possible.

Morocco is a pretty interesting place and was certainly a culture shock having spent the previous 2 weeks in France and The Netherlands. The market places were bustling with people trying to make a living and trying even harder to convince you that what ever they had you needed even if you didn't know it.  The market place was seething with stalls selling all manner of dried fruits - such as the stall shown to the left - spices, food, beverages, henna tattoos, knock off watches etc and that was before you even worried about heading into the labyrinth of Sooks surrounding the market square.

Away from the market places Morocco was rich in ornate tile and plaster work - particuarly through the old parts of Marrakech and in the Kasbahs and old palaces. It was amazing to come out of the dusty busy streets and into old no longer occupied Palaces - generally packed with tourists but covered in the most amazing tiles, archways, carved plaster walls and ceilings.

This week I decided it was about time to dust off my tagine and relive some of the delicious flavours from my trip. Although Chicken and preserved lemon or Lamb and apricot / quince are some of the tagines that come most readily to mind there is a huge variety of tagines through out Morocco, one that was a great revelation to me on my trip was the Kefta Tagine - the one I had came with eggs as well as Keftas and was fantastic. What is a Kefta - well as you might guess from it's similarity to the word Kofta it is a meatball - in this case poached in the tagine juices.

The recipe I decided on was Tagine of spicy kefta with lemon from the recipe book TAGINE spicy stews from Morocco by Ghillie Basan - this little cookbook is packed full of a wide range of easy tagines full of flavour. I used lamb mince for the keftas they were spiced with cinnamon, cumin, coriander and cayenne pepper. They were then poached in a mixture of water, garlic, ginger, onion, chilli, mint and coriander. Right at the end you add some wedges of lemon in to the mix which turn out beautiful and soft and add flavour packed mouthfuls. Fresh mint and corriander sprinkled over last.

Tagines are generally meat driven perhaps with fruit and unlike a lot of stews generally contain very few vegetables so accompaniments are important. We had a Country salad with peppers and chillies and a Melon and mint salad with orange flower water and couscous to soak up the tagine liquids. The Country salad was crisp and fresh tasting a great juxtoposition to the stew and contained red and green capsicums, celery, green chilli, garlic, mint and parsley. The melon salad is made with honeydew melon and the orange blossom water and mint add some extra flavour to what can sometimes be quite a bland melon.

Natures air freshener

Mint is quite important in Moroccan cuisine as you may be able to geuss by the amount of mint the sellers in the photo bellow have. It is used in both food and drinks and occasionally as natures air freshener is some of the less desirable smelling areas of Marrakech such as the tannery which we unfortunately managed to get shown around.  

Mintox - mint sellers in Marrakech

Of course it isn't a Moroccan meal unless accompanied by the ubiquitous Mint Tea. The way it is served is quite an entertainment in itself with the tea being poured from the teapot into the glasses starting close to the glass and moving the pot away so the stream of mint tea is allowed to cool somewhat on its way to the glass. My Moroccan tea pot and tea glasses set were brought in a sook in Marrakech and surprisingly made it home in the post with only one casulty - one out of six of the tea glasses broke. For the mint tea I used a gunpowder green tea brewed with sprigs of fresh mint and then served in the glass with additional sprigs of mint. The mint tea often came slightly sweetened which changes the flavour slightly however I don't necessarily think this is required depending on your tastes.

At taste of Morocco at home.

The blue-washed building of Chefchaouen

Fish in a bag

On Wednesday it suddenly occurred to me that as much as I felt like the lamb chops and watermelon salad that I had planned to eat that night it was Ash Wednesday and perhaps something more fishy would be more appropriate. I settled on an old favourite - Olive and Herb Fish Parcels from the August 2004 Delicious. I have been cooking this dish for the last 7 years but it always surprises me just how awesome it tastes - so much so that I didn't even bother to take a photo for the blog!!!

A quick trip to Kalis Bros on my way home and picking up a few of the usual fresh herbs and I was all prepared. The beauty of this dish is that it is quick to prepare, quick to cook and tastes fantastic - it looks pretty cool too when you serve it in it's aluminium and baking paper parcels opened up to expose the cooked fish and vegetables.

In the absence of a photo I'll give a brief description - The fish is cooked on a bed of spinach and with thin sliced zucchini and black olives on top - all seasoned with salt and pepper, olive oil and a mixture of lemon juice, lemon rind and mixed herbs - in this instance chives and basil but I have mixed the herbs on other occasions when I have made it. I used a lovely fresh dhufish fillet - quite thick so it required a little extra baking and served with small roast potato cubes with rosemary and pepper and blanched green beans and asparagus.

For someone like myself who doesn't often cook fish this is a great recipe to get your confidence up on fish cooking. Give it a try yourself Olive and Herb Fish Parcels