Moroccan Tagine & Couscous

 

Moroccan Tagine & Couscous

Once more I must apologise for the Peckish Pescatarian’s silence over the last few weeks. I’m almost finished with my degree and so everything has been pretty hectic and essay-centred. The end is now in sight though, as I’ve begun work on my last ever essay, and finish my degree a week today, which is terrifying! And what better way to counter that terror of being a grownup with some delicious, warming food.

This recipe is adapted from a BBC recipe, as I wanted to select which vegetables made up the basis of the tagine. I opted for carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes but you can really chuck in anything that takes your fancy. The combination of spices and flavours in this recipe make for a really fragrant, delicious meal and an excellent leftover lunch! I served this with couscous, but it would also work with some crusty bread or just on its own if you’re not that ravenous.

This recipe uses a chermoula pasta, which is normally a marinade for fish, but in this dish, provides the basis of the flavour and acts more like a curry paste I guess.

One last thing – this recipe takes quite a while to prepare, but is really easy and so worth the time it takes. Once you’ve made the paste and fried the veg, you can simply pop it in the oven and go about the rest of your day!

Chermoula Ingredients (serves 4)

1 1/1 red onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves

Thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger

65ml lemon juice (normally about 2 lemons, if they’re juicy!)

65ml olive oil

1tbsp honey

tbsp ground cumin

1tbsp paprika

1tbsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

Handful of fresh coriander

Tagine Ingredients (serves 4)

1tbsp olive oil

2 carrots, cut into medium-sized chunks

2 parsnips, cut into medium-sized chunks

2 red onions, roughly chopped

2 leeks roughly chopped

8 dried apricots, roughly chopped

Handful of raisins

1 vegetable stock cube

240g couscous

Handful of fresh coriander to serve

Method

Heat the oven to 200c. Chuck all the chermoula ingredients into a blender and whizz until you have a smooth paste.

Chermoula Paste

 

 

Take a heavy-bottomed pan and pour in 1tbsp olive oil and place it on the hob. Once the oil is hot, put the chopped carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, onions and leeks into the pan and fry on the hob for around 1o minutes, making sure to stir so none of the veg catches.

Veggies!

 

Add the chermoula paste, apricots and raisins to the veggies and pour in 280ml water. Put a lid on the pan and bring to the boil. Once the tagine is boiling, take it off the hob and put it in the oven for 45 minutes, with the lid still on. After 45 minutes, turn the oven down to 180c and cook a further 45 minutes.

Whilst the tagine is cooking, why not have a meander through The Dogist. This is a blog dedicated to documenting dogs, rather than people, that the photographer comes across when he’s out and about in the US. If you’re a dog lover like me, then you’ll love these photos and the assortment of furry friends found within them.

Once the tagine has about 10 minutes left of cooking time, make your couscous. Boil the kettle and make 450ml of stock. Put the couscous in a large bowl, and pour over the stock. Cover with a plate or tea-towel and leave for a few minutes. Check the couscous is cooked (if its not, just pour through a bit more stock). Finally, run a fork through the couscous to make sure it doesn’t all stick together in lumps.

Tagine bubbling away!

By now, your tagine should be ready to devour. Serve it with some couscous and fresh coriander and  بالصحة  (bon appetit in Arabic!)

 

 

Rainbow Trout Pasta

Rainbow Trout Pasta

Firstly, I must apologise for my absenteeism. Turns out that third year at university is pretty hard work, and takes over your entire life for weeks at a time, subsuming any non-dissertation related activity that you might fancy doing. Luckily, my dissertation is now done and dusted with, so I am free to return to writing about delicious food, rather than witchcraft in Papua New Guinea, which is quite a relief I must say. I need to make the most of it given that I have another 11,000 words to write in the next few weeks which may result in my disappearance from the blogosphere once again!

This recipe is a very quick and easy, but still delicious, midweek meal. It takes only 15 minutes to throw together, and can be adapted to fit whatever it is you have in your fridge and cupboard. I have used rainbow trout as it is a more affordable option than salmon, but you could use salmon if you are more monied than me. I am often wary that since giving up meat I might not be getting all the right nutrients, or enough of them, so I think it is good to throw in some fish every now and again – especially if it is sustainably sourced.

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 small red onion

2 cloves of garlic

150g chestnut mushrooms

1 fillet rainbow trout, de-skinned and de-boned

225g pasta

Handful of frozen peas

Salt and pepper to season

Method

Set a pan of salted water to boil on the hob, cover and leave until boiling. In the meantime, finely slice your garlic, mushrooms and onion. Hopefully, your fishmonger will have filleted and de-boned your fish, but if not the easiest way to get the bones out is with a pair of tweezers under a bright light! As you will see from the photo, our fishmonger did a rubbish job so my boyfriend took on the tweezering! Once you have de-boned the fish, you can gently peel the skin off the back, making sure not to take any of the flesh with it. Once de-boned and de-skinned, finely slice the fish fillet.

Matt and the tweezers

Place a frying pan with 2 tbsp vegetable oil on the hob, and once hot, add the onion. Fry the onion until transparent and soft on a low heat (this will take about 5 minutes). After the onion has been frying for 5 minutes, add the pasta to the boiling water and leave to cook for approximately ten minutes or until al dente.

In the meantime, once the onion is soft, add the garlic, mushrooms and fish to the frying pan and fry for a further 7-9 minutes. Once the fish is cooked, and the mushrooms are softened, pour the cream into the pan and turn to a very low heat (you don’t want the cream to curdle or separate). Season with salt and pepper.

Approximately 1-2 minutes before the pasta is ready, add the frozen peas to the boiling water so they get a chance to defrost. After a couple of minutes, take the pasta and peas off the heat and drain. Take the sauce off the heat, and stir the pasta through the sauce. Season to your preference, and then tuck in!

This is a very speedy recipe so there isn’t really any point at which I could give you something to do, but if you fancy it whilst you’re eating, or simply at any other time when you’ve got a moment to spare, have a look at bloodandchampagne. It is a photographic blog, of beautiful interiors and houses of a minimalist, industrial and scandinavian ilk. The photos, and their contents are inspiring; now my dissertation is finished, I intend to while away many an hour gazing at them, and dreaming that perhaps one day my home will look something vaguely like this. Perhaps yours already does, or perhaps this will give you some ideas if you are bored of where you’re sat whilst you read this!