Luscious Experience with Moroccan Tagine

Mouth-watering cuisines of Mediterranean are popular throughout the world for their delicious and unique ways of sealing flavor herbs and spices and the juices within the meat and vegetables. Europe, northern Africa and western Asia interacted through the dividing sea in quest for the improvement of their savory original recipes. One of the most sumptuous dishes these cultures exploited is the Moroccan Tagine, named after its pioneer country, Morocco. The Moroccan Tagine recipe is subdivided into several recipes depending on the main ingredients used. Tagines are cooked in special pots of clay with circular base and dome-like or conical covers with knobs. The cover extends up to the pot’s base to provide the cycling of the condensed fluids inside. The braising liquid then is sealed by the slow cooking and so the juices, oils and the flavor. The special structure avoids the drying out of inside, hence, locking all the essential nutrients too. The only way the dish losses its moisture is the regular checking of inside by lifting the knob (can be raised even without using a pot rag). But too much loss of savory juices can be prevented by adding again the essential oils and marinades.

            Different designs and compositions of tagine pots exist today, yet, maintaining the concept of the ancient idea and structure of the cooking. There are pots made of steel or other alloy pot’s base which promotes better cooking for hard meats such as veal, beef and goat meat. In these types of pots, the Moroccan Beef Tagine can be best cooked. It allows greater conduction, hence, higher temperature for better cooking. The pressure is also greater inside, and so, allowing the beef to close the flavor within and brown slowly. Moroccan Lamb Tagine can also be cooked in these pots provided that the temperature is not too much to avoid the falling of the mutton. Other lamb parts can also be added, with the special feature of the tagine cooking, slow-simmering can chunk off the bone-attached parts, for better eating experience and less food wasting. Though these modern pots are very convenient and better to use in some occasions, others prefer the original clay pot for the heat circulation it provides is very different than the metals. Clay pots provide gentler way of cooking, hence, more matching with soft meat like poultry meat. Moroccan Chicken Tagine is more popular recipe than the other two mentioned before because of availability and affordability of chicken meat for common people. Slow-stewed chicken yields more mellow taste and satisfying spiciness.

            Meat tagines are preferred by big eaters but there is also a recipe for vegetarians. Quick-cooked and flavorful, the Moroccan Vegetable Tagine satisfies the cravings of weight and health conscious people. With the absence of unwanted animal fats and oils, the same satisfaction brought by those meat dishes is the same, by using Veggie Meat as a substitute. More variety of tagine can be discovered for as long people eat, the quest for new flavor never ends.