Vegetarian Moroccan Tagine Recipe

This is a lovely tagine made with lovely autumn ingredients – enjoy!

This is our second tagine recipe – you can find the first  Moroccan Tagine recipe here.

Serves 4 hungry people. (To make this dish vegan leave out the butter and honey)

700ml vegetable stock

3 medium onions each cut into 8 wedges

5 plump garlic cloves sliced finely

4 medium carrots cut into large chunks

250g cooked chick peas

10 pitted prunes cut in half

10 very small new potatoes, scrubbed (or 2 med potatoes cut into 2cm/1” chunks)

½ medium sweet potato or a third of a small pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1” chunks

(if you like parsnips and they are in season, you could add a medium parsnip, chopped into 1” chunks. See how you feel. I’ve never done it, husband doesn’t like them, but I’d give it a go, why not?)

1 med/large green or yellow courgette cut into chunks

Freshly ground black pepper

Glug of sunflower oil & a knob of butter

¼ tsp each ground ginger, herbes de provence & cinnamon

1 tsp each sweet paprika & cumin

½ tsp (or more if you like it spicy) hot paprika, chilli powder OR cayenne pepper

1 tbs honey (not necessary if using sweet potato)

300g medium grain couscous

600ml hot water (enough to cover the couscous an inch above it)

½ tsp salt

1 tbs raisins

¼  tsp each sweet paprika, ginger, cinnamon, ground coriander. A pinch of nutmeg

50g flaked almonds dry fried. Be careful not to burn them, turn off the heat when you see the first flake of almond looking close to burning. This takes only about 5 minutes. You need to keep them moving in the pan, even when the heat is turned off.

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil and the butter. Cook the onions on a medium heat until they start to soften, add the garlic and cook gently until they start to brown. Turn off the heat.

Put the veg stock, herbs and all veg into a tagine or large casserole dish and add all the veg except the courgette, spices and herbs. Leave the tagine to stand all day if possible, stirring once or twice.

Put the tagine in the oven and then put it on to 180`C. Wait for an hour. Take out the tagine and check the potatoes and carrots are soft. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning if necessary. If the veg are not soft, return to the oven for 15 more minutes. If all veg are cooked, turn off the oven add the courgette and return to the oven while you prepare the couscous.

In the same saucepan that you prepared the onions and garlic, put the couscous, spices and water. Leave for 10 minutes. Then add a splash of olive oil and fluff with a fork. If it’s a bit stuck together, add a knob of butter and fluff again.

Scatter the almonds on the tagine, serve the couscous onto warmed plates and put the tagine in the middle of your table so people can help themselves to the delicious juice when they need more….