Cooking with a Tagine

I was in a cooking store a few weeks ago and I saw this strange shaped cooking pot by Le Creuset that the sales rep told me was a Tajine.

I had never heard of this before!

So some Google searching told me that this is a Moroccan cooking vessel and that the originals are usually made of clay, similar to a Dutch oven. I read some reviews on the Le Creuset one, and found out that it is very expensive and generally people complain about the fact that it doesn’t have a breathing hole in the top of the ‘flute’. Apparently this lets excess liquid escape that otherwise runs down the edges of the bowl.

I ended up in another cooking store (yes it seems that I frequent them in between buying gadgets) and I saw a Maxwell Williams Tagine. It seemed to fit the bill, and was relatively inexpensive (under $40).

So it came home with me.

Now what?

Google was my friend again as I searched the Net for recipes to make in it. I settled on this recipe for spicy chicken tagine with apricots. I started the tagine on the gas stove top on low heat to do the onions, oil, butter and spices. I then chopped up all the chicken bits, threw everything else in, and put the top on the tagine and stuffed it in the oven. About an hour later it was done, and smelled fantastic! It tasted even better than it smelled. Very moist, wonderful combination of flavours.

Pic of Tagine when I took it out of the oven:



















Here’s a pic of what I made:



















And another recipe I did a few days later with squash and sweet potatoes (yams):