Moroccan Tagine

I had butternut squash and had been making the Bengali version which I watched on Indian Food Made Easy on BBC. After a while I tried searching for something more interesting to do with butternut squash. Turned out tagine is a perfect blend of spices and very yummy. Mainly it can been done with the spices in your kitchen.

This recipe is based on a recipe I read at Taste of Morocco. It seemed an easy to prepare recipe, but I didn’t have all the spices in my kitchen. So I did skip a few things. But the tagine still turned out yummy.

Ingredients

1 medium Butternut Squash
1 cup chickpeas (dried)
1 small onion
3 medium tomatoes or 10 ripe cherry tomatoes
3/4 tspn paprika powder
1/2 tspn chilli powder
1 tspn cumin powder
3 large cloves garlic
1 tspn sugar
1 Tspn oil
2 1/2 cups water
fresh coriander to garnish
pepper powder to taste
salt to taste

 Method

If using dry chickpeas, soak the chickpeas overnight. In the morning, cook them in a pressure cooker for 2 whistles. If using canned chickpeas, you can cook them in the pressure cooker directly.

Wash and peel the butternut squash. Chop into medium sized chunks.

Finely chop onions and garlic. Chop tomatoes into chunks. If using cherry tomatoes, keep as is. Finely chop coriander.

Heat oil in a large pan. Fry onions till they are soft. Add in the chopped garlic and fry for some more time.

Add in cumin powder, chill powder, paprika powder and some pepper powder . Saute for a few seconds. Now add sugar, tomatoes, little bit of coriander and cooked chickpeas with 2 cups of water. Cook for a while and add in the butternut squash chunks.

Bring to a boil on high heat. Add more water if required. Add salt to taste.

Simmer for around 30 mins with lid on.

Remove off heat. Garnish with remaining coriander and sprinkle some more pepper powder.

Serve with couscous or rice. This dish works well with bread or naan as well.

Recipe from Taste of Morocco