Moroccan tagine style chickpea stew

Perfectly soft slow cooked chickpeas in a flavoursome Moroccan spiced sauce with preserved lemon and green olives. This Moroccan chickpea stew is delicious weeknight meal you'll be making again and again.

I recently took a two week trip to Morocco and I have to admit I didn’t really know much about Moroccan food and hadn’t really tried it before. However upon basic research I saw that as a vegan I’d be safe with most vegetable tagines and couscous. Thankfully I LOVED tagine and ate them almost every day. However by mostly travelling rural I really only came across vegetable tagine and could help but think how I could add other things to a tagine- chickpeas, beans, tofu or fake meats. So obviously when I got home it only made sense to use the incredible Moroccan flavours to make a tagine style dish of my own. Now the tagine is actually the name for the cooking pot therefore I wont call this an actual tagine but more “tagine inspired”. The beautiful spice blend mixed with my new favourite ingredient- the preserved lemon- make for the most incredibly flavourful dishes. The kind that non vegans wouldn’t be fussed about upon hearing about it but are incredibly surprised when they try the dish. The way you can combine a multitude of plants and create something so flavoursome never fails to amaze me. If you haven’t tried much Moroccan food give this dish a go and I promise you’ll be converted. This makes a wonderful midweek meal served up with some bread or couscous and you can even batch cook as the flavours intensify over night. Enjoy!

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Ingredients and substitutes-

• Chickpeas- Ordinary tinned chickpeas will work fine here but if you’d like a more luxury dish you can buy queen chickpeas from the UK company ‘bold bean’.

• Preserved lemon- Preserved lemons are salted, soft aged lemons that you can eat the rind of. The preserving makes the rind very soft and the sharp flavour of the lemon is softened. Preserved lemons have a much more complex flavour and to me are the star of the show of the flavour profile in this dish. They are available in most supermarkets but can also be made at home for a fraction of the price. Try not to skip adding these if you can.

• Green olives- I am not a huge olive fan but they really do belong in this dish. If you do not like big chunks of olives try to dice them up and appreciate the saltiness that they add to this dish. However if you really cannot stomach them then feel free to omit.

• Saffron- Saffron is well known for being the most expensive luxury spice however only a small amount needs to be used in each dish to get the flavour- it is very strong. So its well worth buying some to pop in your cupboard for special occasions. I used a cheaper Spanish saffron in this dish- use whatever variety you can find or omit if you like.

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Top Tips!

Sauce-

If you are serving your tagine make sure to slightly increase the amount of water to ensure you’ve got enough of the infused juices that make up the sauce to mop up at the end.

Cooking time-

The key to developing all of those lovely flavours is the cooking time- do allow enough time to keep this dish cooking for a while you want beautifully soft chickpeas that are given enough time to soak up those flavours.

Adding water-

Make sure the tagine doesn’t dry out and burn. You’ll need to check on it roughly every 15-20 minutes adding small amounts of water each time to avoid it drying out.

And now for the recipe!

Slow cooked Moroccan tagine style chickpeas

Serves- 2 Time- 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients-

• 560g Cooked chickpeas

• 1 Large onion (diced)

• 2 Minced garlic cloves

• 2tbsp Tomato paste

• 1 Preserved lemon

• 10 Green olives

• Spice mix-

• 1tsp Paprika

• 1tsp Cumin

• 1tsp Ground coriander

• 1tsp Black pepper

• 1tsp Turmeric

• 1tsp Saffron

Method-

1. Preheat the oven to 180C

2. Cut the preserved lemon in half and remove the seeds. Dice up really fine and set aside.

3. Dice up half of the olives and slice the others to garnish the dish. Set these aside also.

4. Add a glug of olive oil to the pan and fry off the dice onion until softened. Stir in the minced garlic.

5. Now add in the diced preserved lemon, the spices, salt and tomato paste. Stir well on a low heat.

6. If using jarred chickpeas add them in with their juice. If using tinned chickpeas drain them and add in with 200 ml of water.

7. Now add the diced olives and stir to combine all of the ingredients.

8. Pop the lid on and put into the oven for 1 hour.

9. You’ll need to check in on the dish every 15-20 minutes to make sure its not drying out. If the chickpeas are looking a little dry add in water bit by bit to keep it moist and slightly saucy.

10. After the hour has passed and you’ve checked that the chickpeas are soft and flavoursome take the dish out and serve up garnished with some lemon slices, chopped parsley and the sliced olives.

FAQ-

·         Can I use something other than chickpeas?- Honestly this spice mix is truly fool proof and I think it would go beautiful on anything. Swap out the chickpeas for whatever you have or fancy just do be aware of cooking times- in my opinion the best tagines are slow cooked and everything is soft but not mushy.

·         What type of pot should I use?- You’ll need an oven proof pan or dish with a lid, the lid is non negotiable to keep all of the moisture in the dish. I used a cast iron casserole dish from John Lewis.

Why not try these other chickpea recipes?

• Creamy coconut chickpea curry

• Lebanese style hummus

Did you make this recipe?

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Click here to watch the recipe video

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