Eggplant and Sweet Potato Tagine with quinoa

I love my Tagine!

Tonight I set out to use my new Emile Henry Tagine which my sister Merilyn got me for Christmas. It was in a box till we moved, then went on the ship and then was sitting on the stove for a week and I have been wanting to use it everyday now. For some reason I thought anything cooked in it would take a long time but surprisingly, tonight’s dinner didn’t take long at all! Maybe 30 minutes? Along with the Tagine, Merilyn printed out a recipe from one of my favourite Australian blogs Not Quite Nigella. Mez knows I love her site and this was a super recipe – Moroccan Beef Tagine and Creamed Polenta. HOWEVER – I changed the recipe A LOT – making it vegetarian and just working with what I had. So of course I got rid of the beef, but I also had 1 huge sweet potato which I used instead of the normal potatoes and I used 3 small Chinese eggplants instead of the 2 small Lebanese eggplants in the recipe.

In my mix:

• 1 T ground cumin powder
• 1 T ground coriander powder
• Pinch of chilli flakes
• Few grinds of sea salt and black pepper
• 1/2 a huge brown onion, finely sliced
• 2 small red chillis, deseeded and finely sliced
• 8 garlic cloves, skin on
• 3 small Chinese long eggplants (about 500g once peeled and chopped), cut lengthways into 4 each and then in half
• 1 huge sweet potato (about 600g once peeled and chopped), cut into pieces
• 1 Massel stock cub dissolved in 400ml of boiling water
• 1 T honey

I sauteed the onion and the chilli in the tagine base in a little stock till translucent.

Then I put the chopped sweet potato on top of the onions, then the eggplant, then the garlic cloves, then sprinkled the spices on top. Then I poured the stock with honey dissolved in, over the top.

I put the top of the Tagine on for a few minutes to let the veggies steam a little then stirred it all up as best I could.

Then the lid went on at a medium heat! It’s that simple.

I checked the Tagine every 10 minutes or so and stirred the mixture. It reached a simmer quite quickly but never burnt the base.

Such a great cooking method, and it didn’t need any oil or much attention!

At the last minute I added some fresh coriander. I was so excited to find fresh coriander today at a stall near our house. I haven’t seen it once yet at the supermarkets.

Nearly done.

Lid went back on for a couple more minutes. Then voila! The sweet potato was perfectly cooked and the eggplant melty. The fragrance was awesome!

My serve with some quinoa and more fresh coriander.

Makes 4 serves – Adam had 2, I had 1 and there is 1 serve leftover. Yum!

The stats (not including quinoa):

Now I’m gonna go look for more Tagine recipes! Ha ha.

Gotta get to bed, I’m meeting Amelia for run on Bowen Road tomorrow morning at 6am. Yikes, gotta be up at 5am to get the train there.