Tajine, cous cous, tajine, cous cous, tajine… When visiting Morocco, you have to go out of your way to avoid eating one or the other – or both – pretty much every day.
In Morocco, a tajine is both a slow-cooked savoury stew and the conical pottery cooking vessel in which they are prepared. So strictly speaking, while drawing on the flavours of Morocco, this fruit and vegetable tajine is not a tajine at all.
It is delicious though, and less oily than most I’ve eaten, especially those featuring chicken or lamb.
The recipe is closely based on one in Jill Dupleix’s Good Cooking: The New Essentials.
Vegetable and fruit tajine
(serves 4)
- 2 Tb olive oil
- 1 onion, halved and sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- a pinch of saffron threads
- 1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
- 3 carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
- 400g tin tomatoes
- 400ml vegetable stock
- 8 green olives
- 8 dried apricots
- 1 tsp harissa
- 1/2 Tb brown sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 medium courgettes, chopped
- 8 medjool dates
- salt and pepper
- Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan over a medium-low flame. Add the onion and sauté until softened. Add the garlic, coriander, ginger and saffron and cook a couple of minutes more.
- Now add the sweet potato, carrots, tomatoes, vegetable stock, olives, apricots, harissa, honey and cinnamon. Bring the mixture to the boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for fifteen minutes.
- Add the courgettes and dates, and cook for a further ten minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
- Season with salt and pepper, and serve with cous cous.
Ten More Bites 
This looks fantastic
Thank you!
Yum! You’ll have people queuing out of your kitchen for this one! We love tagines and are definitely overdue one. We’ll definitely be giving this one a try. 🙂
Thank you! I haven’t tried it on anyone outside the family yet, but it certainly goes down well with my “captive” audience!
Haha indeed; we know exactly what we like. 😀 Your friends and extended family are certainly in for a treat! 🙂
Yesterday I made my usual Gypsy Soup, but today I am going to improve it, adding dates, apricots, Zucchini and olives as you’ve suggested here! Thanks for the idea!
You are most welcome! Is that the Moosewood gypsy soup? If so, I love that recipe.
Thank you for posting this! I used to live in Morocco and it’s hard to find good recipes here!
You are welcome — I’ve only visited Morocco as a tourist. Loved the people and the food!