Tagine

Tagine Dish

A very successful entrepreneur son of my friend  has to travel a lot. On one of his visits to Morocco he and his wife were treated to delightful Moroccan meal including a tagine recipe. They were also gifted with  this beautiful dish.

On their return to Pune they decided to entertain their guests to a party with a menu including the  newly acquired tagine recipe

At dinner time the dish had a pride of place on the table. On opening the lid the fragrance wafted throughout the room. The hostess found that the recipe was covered with a beautiful silver film. The dish was appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed by one and all.

But the hostess was not happy with the 'silver' film. She thought of consulting me as I am known amongst friends as a bit of a 'ceramist'.

 I noticed that the glaze finish of the dish was very shiny. I  guessed that the 'silver' film had something to do with the glaze.My ceramic guru had taught us that in earlier days mercury salts used to be added to the glaze to render a shine to the finished ware.A search on the net lead me to an item stating that some time ago, Canadian authorities had noticed that  a sample of a consignment of Moroccan tagines exported to Canada gave similar effects.On detection of lead the consignment was declared food unsafe and returned to the exporting country.

I passed on this knowledge to my friends and this beautiful tagine dish has now been banished from the kitchen and now adores their mantelpiece

Cheese Dish

There is an interesting angle to this story. Some years ago  I had turned out a 'cheese dish' from a design copied from a  book. When I looked at the original tagine I found that my cheese dish had a resemblance to the Moroccan tagine. I suggested to my wife to use this contraption to turn out a tagine recipe. She is quite an "Edison" in the kitchen.She cooked her own modification of the traditional recipe in my 'improvised tagine' and the result was absolutely "oo...mh" the usual audio byte one hears in the cookery programmes on the TV.
With her permission I am giving her recipe which obviously has no mention of quantities and it is mostly 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that' . But I strongly recommend it as worth a try.

Lalita's own Tagine Recipe:                                             

Ingredients: Pieces of Chicken,sliced onions,dry ginger,

cinamon,and red chilli powder,crushed garlic,sliced

carrots and tomatoes,chicken stock, oil and salt..

Method: Marinate chicken with ginger,cinamon and

red chilli powders for 1/2 hr.Heat tagine on direct

flame. Add oil.Add chicken and stir for a few minutes

and keep it aside. To the oil in tagine add onion and garlic

Stir but do not allow it to brown. Add sliced carrots

and tomatoes. Add stock and salt and stir for 2-3

minutes. Cover the dish with the top cone and cook

on medium heat for 15-20 minutes.

Sure enough to make a delightful dish !

Almost ready



Certainly delicious