I got this for Christmas, and while it looks lovely, it didn't come with instructions, and most "tagine" recipes on the Web seem to assume that you do not in fact possess a tagine
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First you need to make sure it's actually intended for cooking, some of them aren't. If it's a terra cotta tagine you'll need to season it (but not if it's completely glazed). To do that, you can dunk it in water for at least an hour, then take it out and rub olive oil on it. Put it in the oven at 150C for around 2-3 hours, then let it cool and wash it. To actually cook with it, just take the ingredients called for in the recipe, put them in the pot, and bake it around 180C for a couple hours. (To a first approximation, of course every recipe is different.) As for recipes, I like "Tagines and Couscous: Delicious recipes for Moroccan one-pot meals" by Ghillie Basan.
I bought it in the cookery section of a shop, so I hope it's intended for cooking. It's plain, not painted fancy colours like some, so I think I'm safe there. Thanks for the thought, though!
It's not quite completely glazed: the base (outside, not inside) is plain unsealed earthenware. I'd guess since that doesn't come in contact with food, there's no need to do anything to it?
Let me check the obvious, as well: this is for oven use only, right? Not stovetop. If I want to sear ingredients first, or fry onions or something, I use a different pan and transfer.
Thank you for the heads-up -- I added a general appliances tag :)
Also -- yes, you're correct about how to use a tagine. There are a few books that I saw on amazon that actually deal with using a tagine (as opposed to a tagine recipe, which does you not much good :) ).
Personally I'd cook it in a big pan, and then put it in the tagine to serve. You won't find many recipes for pork tagine though, the ones I've seen have been lamb or chicken, sometimes beef, veg or fish. There are some links to some authentic sounding lamb recipes here. http://www.morocco-holidays-guide.co.uk/tagine/lamb-tagines.html
What I tend to do though is to throw mine together, I generally cook some onions in some oil, add the meat or fish, and add veg, stock, some variety of dried fruit like date or apricot, flavour it with ras al hanout - add to taste, it can be quite spicy, but in a fragrant warming way, and sometimes I add a couple of cinnamon sticks. I'll leave it to cook gently on the stove top for a couple of hours and check it every so often, tweaking the flavour.
Great link - loads of recipes there, thanks! The main page http://www.morocco-holidays-guide.co.uk/tagine/tagine-recipes.html has a picture of almost exactly the tagine I've got, it's just that colour. Sadly, though, the recipes then talk about cooking without benefit of tagine, on the stovetop :( Never mind, I'm sure I can adapt given the ingredients.
Oh, while I remember, if you like fish, you can make a great fish tagine too - I made one for a Moroccan style feast alongside a lamb one, as one of our friends only ate fish. I used a spiced tomato base with peppers, and added some spices and preserved lemons - I was delighted when one of my other friends tried it and exclaimed at its flavour, then went back for another big helping. My Paula Wolfert has a recipe or two in it for fish tagine. I picked up her Good Food From Morocco in a second hand store, and it's one of the best cookery books I've got, it goes into all sorts about Moroccan food.
It's true you won't find a lot of authentic Moroccan recipes that use pork; I believe Morroco a mostly Muslim population, so they wouldn't be eating pork. Classic Moroccan cooking uses lamb and cinnamon and wonderful things like that. Yum.
However, I'm sure you could get away with using it anyway and just make up your own recipes. The principle of the cooking would be the same as anything else, I'd think, low and slow. And while I think you'd get a pretty different result than with lamb, I bet pork cooked with cinnamon and turmeric or whatever would be quite delicious.
I don't actually own a tagine unfortunately, but I use my slow cooker to make tagine recipes.
In any supermarket you can get tagine sauce mix and paste. In Tescos and Sainsburys they're in the world foods and cooks ingredients sections. Basically do it a bit like a stew, but using the sauce or a moroccan seasoning. I don't eat meat, so I tend to just use the sauce, but you can also get those short round metal pots of spice mixes in a moroccan flavour. Brown the meat in that, then add veg and sauce and stew a long time.
Sorry for actual detail lacking, but mostly just to add the info about tagine sauce and spices in UK supermarkets.
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Let me check the obvious, as well: this is for oven use only, right? Not stovetop. If I want to sear ingredients first, or fry onions or something, I use a different pan and transfer.
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Also -- yes, you're correct about how to use a tagine. There are a few books that I saw on amazon that actually deal with using a tagine (as opposed to a tagine recipe, which does you not much good :) ).
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http://www.morocco-holidays-guide.co.uk/tagine/lamb-tagines.html
What I tend to do though is to throw mine together, I generally cook some onions in some oil, add the meat or fish, and add veg, stock, some variety of dried fruit like date or apricot, flavour it with ras al hanout - add to taste, it can be quite spicy, but in a fragrant warming way, and sometimes I add a couple of cinnamon sticks. I'll leave it to cook gently on the stove top for a couple of hours and check it every so often, tweaking the flavour.
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The main page http://www.morocco-holidays-guide.co.uk/tagine/tagine-recipes.html has a picture of almost exactly the tagine I've got, it's just that colour. Sadly, though, the recipes then talk about cooking without benefit of tagine, on the stovetop :( Never mind, I'm sure I can adapt given the ingredients.
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However, I'm sure you could get away with using it anyway and just make up your own recipes. The principle of the cooking would be the same as anything else, I'd think, low and slow. And while I think you'd get a pretty different result than with lamb, I bet pork cooked with cinnamon and turmeric or whatever would be quite delicious.
Reply
In any supermarket you can get tagine sauce mix and paste. In Tescos and Sainsburys they're in the world foods and cooks ingredients sections. Basically do it a bit like a stew, but using the sauce or a moroccan seasoning.
I don't eat meat, so I tend to just use the sauce, but you can also get those short round metal pots of spice mixes in a moroccan flavour.
Brown the meat in that, then add veg and sauce and stew a long time.
Sorry for actual detail lacking, but mostly just to add the info about tagine sauce and spices in UK supermarkets.
Reply
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