Mexican tacos with different fillings

Preparing Moroccan Berber tagine in an easy way 

Berber Tagine

• As it was mentioned before, Tagine is a Moroccan dish made of different meat or vegetables and cooked in a pot with spices and herbs, and the name 'Tagine' refers both to the earthenware pot the dish is cooked in and also to the cooked dish itself. 

• The Berber tagine is a traditional dish with the flavors of the Atlas and is a part of the Moroccan culture and is one among other different delicious tagines that exist in Morocco such as fish Tagine, chicken tagine with olives, meat tagine with dried prune, meatball tagine. It is also made with meat, vegetables, and dry fruits, On the meat side, we can choose lamb, calf, fish, or chicken, we can also do without it.

• This dish is cooked in a clay pot and is traditionally cooked in the embers of an open fire, but can also be cooked on a stovetop on low heat.

• In the blog of today, we are going to prepare two Berber tagines with lamb meat and with a small difference in the spices that will use but both tagines are delicious. 

1. Preparation: 20 min
2. Cooking time: 1h 10 min
3. Serving: 6 to 8 people
4. Origin: Morocco

The Recipe for our first Berber Tagine 

Let us discover the ingredients.

• For the number of vegetables, it is to everyone's taste, we can put more or less such vegetables; you can use more carrots than potatoes, more zucchini than turnips. peas or do without carrots and use your preferred vegetable than other and so on.  

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of lamb

• 1 big red onion

• 3 potatoes

• 2 medium carrots

• 2 turnips

• 2 tomatoes

• 2 zucchini

• 2 teaspoon pepper

• A bit of saffron

• The bark of 2 preserved lemon

• Olive oil for cooking

• Green olives to taste

• Salt to taste

Now let us begin with the preparation.

The steps to follow:

1. In a tagine or in a normal cooking pan put the pieces of meat, add the olive oil, the chopped onion, and brown all for 5 to 10 min then season with pepper, ginger, saffron, and salt. 

2. Add water preferably warm and cook for 45 minutes.

3. In the meantime, peel the vegetables. Cut the potatoes in the direction of length, zucchini carrots, and turnips in four.
 

4. Arrange the dome-shaped vegetables on the meat, decorate with olives and the preserved lemon, add a little olive oil and cook for 30 minutes with a very soft fire.

5. Serve hot in the tagine dish with bread.

The second Berber Tagine

• This second tagine is a bit different from the first one in the combination of the spices that are used, we will use a typic spice known in morocco called "Ras el Hanout" and we will cook it in a normal cooking pan. 

What are the ingredients that are used in this tagine?

• 1.5 kg lamb shoulder cut into medium pieces

• 1 onion

• 3 carrots

• 4 long zucchini

• 3 potatoes

• 3  tomatoes

• 1 bunch of cilantro

• 1 teaspoon of paprika

• 1 teaspoon of Ras el Hanout

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• salt and pepper to taste

• Green olives to garnish

How to prepare this Berber tagine?

1. In a cooking pot put the meat pieces add the olive oil and brown the meat for a few minutes then add the chopped onion, salt, pepper, and mix gently, then add the paprika, ras el hanout.

2. Cover the meat with water. Cover the pot and leave to simmer, for 40 minutes.

3. After these 40 minutes add the pieces of zucchini,  potatoes, carrots, tomato slices, and the chopped coriander. Leave to simmer for another time for about 20 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked.

4. Check the sauce, it should be dense. 

How to serve the tagines?

. The tagine is served as it is the same dish if it is cooked in the tagine pot, however, if you cooked your tagin in a normal cooking pot, take a plate put the meat in the center of this plate then arrange the vegetables gently on the meat and pour the sauce over them. Decorate with green olives.

. All Moroccan tagines are served hot and accompanied by Moroccan homemade bread. Enjoy your meal! 

Good Appetite!

😀