The other day I went out for a meal and had a veggie tagine (I’m a veggie!). It was uber tasty so I thought I’d do my best to recreate it. If you want to add some meat to yours then lamb or beef should fit great in this dish, you’d just need to seal the meat for several minutes prior to cooking the rest of the dish.

~500g of meat (very optional!)

2 onions roughly chopped

2 carrot, peeled and sliced on the diagonal

1 courgette, cut in half length ways, then sliced on the diagonal

2 large potatoes cut into chunks (sweet potatoes would also work)

~350g of butternut squash (most squash would work)

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, rinsed

1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes

1.2 Litres of stock

1 tablespoon of ras el hanout spice mix or harissa paste

1 teaspoon of coriander

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 tablespoon of fresh coriander

1 tablespoon of fresh parsley

4 large cloves of garlic chopped

100 g of couscous per person

50g of chopped dried apricots (soaked in hot water)

Some flaked almonds

Olive oil

In a large pan, sauté the onions in some oil until they soften and turn translucent. If using meat this would be sealed prior to the onions, and taken out. The meat would then be added back when you start to add the tomatoes. Add the carrots and courgettes (zucchini) and continue cooking for several minutes. Add the potatoes, squash and garlic and cook for a further few minutes.  

Once the veggies have started to soften and brown a little, add the dried coriander, cinnamon, and turmeric, and coat the veggies. Add the tomatoes, stock, chickpeas, and spice mix (add the meat back at this point if using). Cook for about 1 to 1.5 hours until a lot of the liquid has evaporated, while stirring every so often.

Meanwhile toast the flaked almonds in a small frying pan (no oil in the pan), heating the almonds until toasty and brown a little (not burnt!). Add the chopped coriander and parsley to the tagine, reserving some of the parsley and coriander.  Soak the apricots for about 10-mins.

Add the apricots, to some couscous, along with the apricot water, and the reserved coriander and parsley. You’ll need about double the amount of water to couscous (100g of dried couscous needs about 200mL of water). Heat gently, while stirring for several minutes until the couscous is cooked. Serve with the tagine and sprinkle over the almonds.