This recipe is complete, but something seems to be missing. More investigation needed
before I do it again.
This is my adaptation of my recipe for tagine
with prunes and almonds, itself an adaptation of a recipe suggested to me by Mohammed
Ifadir. The main difference is the substitution of apricots for prunes, but I have also
added some chick peas. See the previous
recipe for more details.
The photos on this page were taken at two different times that I cooked it, on 8 April 2017 and 7 June 2025.
Ingredients
Serves 8
quantity
ingredient
step
225 g
chick peas (dried) OR
1
550 g
chick peas (cooked)
1
6 g
cumminseed
2
5 g
black pepper
2
8 g
cinnamon
2
2 g
cardamom seeds
2
1 g
cloves
2
20 g
ginger
3
25 g
garlic
3
1.2 kg
boned leg of lamb (900 g after removing fat)
4
30 g
oil
5
350 g
onion
6
13 g
parsley
6
300 g
aubergine
7
300 g
courgettes
7
380 g
potatoes
7
25 g
salt
7
250 g
dried apricots
8
125 g
almonds, peeled
9
Preparation
If the chick peas are raw, soak them overnight or boil them for 5 minutes, then change
water and cook for another 1 to 2 hours. If they're cooked, do nothing.
Finely grind cumminseed, pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.
Cut onions into slices, coarsely chop parsley. Add to tagine and bring to the boil.
Close lid and simmer very gently for 15 minutes. There's not much liquid initially, so
be careful not to burn.
Cut potatoes, courgettes and aubergine into slices and arrange on top of the tagine.
Spread salt on top. It should wash down into the dish during cooking. Bring back to
the boil, cover and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until tender.
Deep fry almonds at 160° until barely coloured. They won't burn quickly at that
temperature, but the flavour suffers if they get more than slightly coloured.
Before serving, arrange apricots and almonds on top of tagine:
I still have issues with this recipe. When do I put in the chick peas? In earlier
invocations I put them in towards the end, because they seemed to cook very quickly. But on
7 June 2025 I preboiled them and then put them in from the start, and they were still firm.
Thus the current “boil for 1 or 2 hours”. And
somehow the flavour isn't strong enough. Possibly some of the ideas from the fake tagine could improve it.
