The Tajine, you were gone for a while but not forgotten

When I look back at most of the foodposts that I have made over the years, I can conclude that I am way more fond of cooking in other style than in Dutch cuisine. Who even knows what Dutch cuisine even is? I know I am not too fond of all the mashed stuff, and even if I do...usually I enhance it with a lot of other stuff to take out the blandness.

To me food is taking flavours to the extreme, and with that also the color in there. A dish needs to look appealing to also be happy with it if you ask me. The more color, the more you want to eat it.

A while back there was a period where I used to make a lot of tajines, and for some reason I also stopped with it again. A tajine is a way of shimmering and steaming food in a very typical pot.

You see this a lot in Maroccan and Middle Eastern countries and you can make it as crazy in there as you want.

Easy easy easy

For me it also has another feature apart from the flavour. This is just a perfect way of getting rid of all of you left over veggies and everything else you want to toss in there.

The only thing that is essential is the herbs and spices that you want to add. But again, this is also all to your own discretion. You can go as much overboard as you want!


See the shape of the tajine? That makes the air circulate in there leaving all of the moist in there
Pixabay


So for this one I let some chicken (from the Turkish butcher, way more fresh that from the supermarket and cheaper as well) marinate for a bit in just random spices. The choice of the day was hot paprika, vadouvan and kurkuma. And yes, this also has something to do with the yellow colour you get from it.

After that I just tossed in the random veggies of choice. In this case that was eggplant (the mother of all flavour absorber if you ask me), red bellpeper, onion and pumpkin.

I also added some chopped dried abricots because I really like the sweetness that comes off of that and it immediately makes me think about warm temperatures.

Then the random choice of spices came on in. Back in the day I would buy these pre-set mixes from the guy on the market, but actually I am also capable of just choosing some random stuff which is also fine.

For now I went for a mix of garam masala (I know...different kitchen, but still tasty) and za'atar.

And boom...life is good!