Quarantine Tagine

Luscious jewels of autumnal harvest braised in a thick and fragrant stew, a warming dish for a chilly lockdown evening at home. Serves 4

Ingredients
  • 800 g of root and other vegetables from the autumn harvest cut into even bite sized dice. HINT: so they cook evenly, cut the quicker cooking veg twice as big as the rest, then slice in half when they are cooked. I used parsnips, carrots, buttercup squash, kumara and zucchini in equal amounts
  • 50 ml olive oil
  • 1 large onion, cut into fine dice
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp coriander seeds
  • 1 tbsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1 tsp powdered ginger
  • Chilli to taste
  • 400 g can diced tomatoes in juice
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 10 black olives stoned and halved
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 orange
  • A few leaves of something green, finely sliced (I used beetroot leaves but silverbeet, spinach, kale would all be good) .
  • 1 can chickpeas, or 1/2 cup chickpeas soaked overnight and boiled until tender. HINT: soak and cook extra then store in the freezer.
Method
  1. Turn on the oven to 180C
  2. Place the diced veg into a roasting pan, toss through 1 tbsp of the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast until caramelised. Using a fish slice cut the bigger pieces in half until all are roughly the same size.
  3. Meanwhile make the sauce by gently cooking the onion until soft in the remainder of the olive oil.
  4. Grind the coriander, cumin and fennel and add to the onion with the garlic, paprika and ginger. Stir fry until fragrant.
  5. Peel thin shavings of lemon and orange peel using a potato peeler. About 5 shavings of each and avoid the white pith. Reserve the rest of the fruit.
  6. Add the tomatoes and honey and cook until the mixture is thick and sticky.
  7. Stir the vegetables through the sauce with the olives, chickpeas, juice from the lemon and orange and green leaves (which will cook sufficiently in the heat of the dish if they are sliced finely).
  8. Serve with rice or couscous, a generous dollop of tahini sauce and shower with coriander leaves.

Tahini Sauce

Yoghurt and Tahini sauce – mix 180 ml yoghurt with 60 ml Tahini, juice of a lemon and a crushed garlic clove. Salt to taste.

Or to make it vegan: Tahini Sauce – gradually mix tahini with water until the tahini thickens. Add crushed garlic, lemon juice and salt to taste.