Chickpea Tagine

We’ve had some really cold, wet, wintry weather here recently.  Now don’t get me wrong I love winter, it is in fact my favourite season but sometimes I just need to inject a little warmth; and what better way to do it than by taking a little culinary travel expedition.

Having spent a very lazy afternoon reading through one of my recent cookbook purchases, Made in Morocco: A Journey of Exotic Tastes and Places by Julie Le Clerc, I felt incredibly inspired, not just by one or two recipes but by the whole book.  Deciding on a single recipe to cook would have been a complete and utter nightmare, everything just looked too fabulous.  So I decided to create something myself using the book as a starting point, an exceptionally inspirational one at that. 

The only prerequisite was that the meal was vegetarian, part of my mission to convince my parents that excellent meals do not have to be meat based.  I’m by no means herbivore anymore (I was a vegetarian for around 4 years during my school-time), the carnivore within me just won’t permit it.

The next stage of course was to raid my vegetable box, fridge and cupboards to see what delights were available to me.  Luckily there were several viable options and I didn’t have to venture out of my warm kitchen to battle against the elements and go shopping, aah relief.

I decided upon Chickpea Tagine with Feta, which I served with couscous. 

I was going to serve this with flat breads such as pitta which would be more authentic, but, my Nigella Lawson All Purpose Pot from her Living Kitchen collection was staring at me from atop the range, just shouting to be used, to allow its full purpose to be reached; how could I say no?

The resulting dish was subtly flavoured, yet somehow managed to engage all food senses and was a resounding success.  

I have a dreadful habit of creating dishes and not remembering what I put in them, a bit of this a dash of that type cookery – all very well until you want to recreate the dish; but, luckily this time I had a notepad and pen to scribble into as I went along.