Chicken, Cauliflower and Chickpea Tagine

I’ll be honest going to Morocco was actually one of the worst holidays of my life. The architecture and scenery was stunning, the food was amazing but I struggled massively with not being able to vaguely look at anything on a stall / restaurant without being harangued.

After a guy offered to show us the tanning / carpet shops and then went truly insane we didn’t want to buy a £1000 rug demanding £50 for ten minutes of his time, we wised up and were better at the firm No!/Headshake , but I could never quite get comfortable. I was reduced to tears when a guy at stall in the Night Market in Marrakesh called me a bitch because we didn’t eat at his stall that evening. We had nodded a maybe earlier on in the evening.

However the food was amazing especially the tangines, I still remember a rabbit and prune one. I don’t own a tagine, as with everything I use my pressure cooker which creates that long slow cook taste in less than an hour. If you don’t have one a Le Cruset does the same but in a longer time.

Chicken, Cauliflower and Date Tagine

Half a preserved lemon finely chopped (recipe)
2 dried limes
1tbsp of turmeric ( you can use a few strands of saffron)
1tbsp of harrisa (recipe below save what is left for serving but you can add more here if you are feeding people who can cope with some heat )
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 large onion finely chopped
1 large cauliflower roughly diced
300g of cooked chick peas ( Either canned or dried chick peas can be in the pressure cooker on high for 45 minutes with the pressure released slowly
Handful of dates roughly chopped
Handful of olives halved
3 chicken thighs (I’m quite stingy with meat these days)
1 pint of water

Mix together all the ingredients and cook on 30 minutes on 2 (high), that’s it.

Harissa
1/2 red pepper finely chopped
1 red chili ( scotch bonnets are great)
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1 tsp of coriander seeds
1 tsp of fennel seeds
5 tbsp of sunflower oil
1/2 tsp of salt