Eating round the world for 20 days in lockdown, day 18 Morocco

The combination of chickpeas and cinnamon evokes the taste of Morocco, a country situated in the north west of Africa, about the same size as California. The capital city is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca with over 4 million residents. Is it time to watch  the 1942 film named after Casablanca? This recipe had 1 x aubergine (I replaced it with 2 carrots), feel free to add the aubergine back in and remove the carrots! Aubergine is one of the few vegetables I am not keen on. If you can’t buy an ingredient just swap it for something else. I have added in the cinnamon to this recipe. I will be using lazy pre chopped garlic rather than fresh garlic because I don’t have any fresh garlic cloves.

Moroccan vegetable and chickpea tagine

Buy a packet of lemon and garlic couscous (takes 7-8 mins to boil)

Ingredients

• lemon and garlic couscous (7-8 mins to boil)
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into roughly 2cm chunks
• 2 carrots, cut diagonally into chunks
• 2 courgettes, halved lengthways, sliced into 2cm half-moons
• 1 red pepper, stalk removed, seeds removed, cut into 2.5cm chunks
• Low calorie cooking spray
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon harissa paste
• 2 tablespoon clear honey
• 100g dried apricots, halved
• 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• handful chopped fresh coriander, to garnish
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5.
2. Mix the sweet potato, carrots, courgette and red pepper in a large bowl. Spray with low calorie cooking spray. Add salt and pepper.
3. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan over a high heat. When the pan is hot, add the vegetable and fry for 3–4 minutes, or until lightly browned.
4. Add the onions and fry with low calorie spray for 3–5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic, coriander and cumin and fry for 1–2 minutes.
5. Stir in the chopped tomatoes, harissa paste, honey, apricots, cinnamon sticks and chickpeas. Add the vegetables and cook for 2–3 minutes.
6. Cover and transfer to the oven. Cook for 30 minutes, then stir in 200ml cold water until well combined and return to the oven, covered, for a further 15 minutes, or until the tagine is thick and the vegetables are tender. Boil couscous for 7-8 mins.
7. Remove 2 cinnamon sticks. Sprinkle the tagine with chopped coriander and serve with freshly cooked couscous and chunks of lemon.