After reading Mark Bittman’s Minimalist column An Expedited Tagine the other day, I thought I would try it myself. The New York Times was kind enough to provide his recipe for Chickpea Tagine with Chicken and Apricots, and I adapted it for myself.
I had been going to use a piece of pork that was in my freezer instead of chicken, but that pork is super freezer-burned, so I went to the store, looked at the meat, and found some pork “riblets” a.k.a. the strange ends of the ribs that are hard to cut up. I used those for the meat. I nearly doubled the recipe, and used brown rice instead of bulgur. Also, I’m allergic to apricots, so dried mango and raisins went in to my expedited tagine as my fruit. After nearly burning everything and transferring to a new pot, having to run, again, to the store mid-recipe to get some cumin, (the jar was in the spice rack, but there was nothing in it), and a long simmer process, (brown rice takes a while to cook), I came out with a really tasty dinner. This is something that I would like to try again, maybe with a bit less cumin.
One thing that I discovered was ground coriander. I’ve never really been sure what the scent & flavour of coriander is, but after mashing some up today I know, and it smells spicy.