Vegetable Tagine

For the chickpeas, if cooking from scratch, you will need to prepare them ahead of time. If using canned chickpeas, drain and rinse. To prepare the rest of your your mise en place, dice in 1/2 inch cubes the onions, turnips, sweet potatoes and carrots. Next, mince the garlic and measure out the tomato paste. Lastly, toast the cumin and coriander over medium heat until it starts to smoke and release its aroma. Once done, grind in a spice grinder along with the other spices, including the pepper, leaving the mixture a bit course. *Note: Ground cumin and coriander can be used instead of whole, but we do encourage you to use whole spices and grind them yourself. Once done, set everything aside while you start the tagine.

To cook the tagine, heat a large heavy fry pan over medium heat and bring the pan to proper heat. Add the onions and dry-sauté until translucent and and they begin to stick. Once coloration starts at the bottom of the pan, deglaze with a bit of vegetable stock for caramelization. Next, add the garlic and let cook for another minute or so. At this point, reduce the heat to low and add the spices tomato paste and remaining vegetable stock and stir to combine. Add the turnips, sweet potatoes, carrots and chickpeas. Cover and let simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Timing will depend on the size of the vegetables. In the meantime, you can go ahead and prepare the ingredients for the next step.

Pit and very roughly chop the olives. They are also nice simply cut or torn in half. Strain, rinse and cut the artichokes into quarters, if they are not already. Zest the lemons. This may seem like a lot of lemon zest, but it works well in this dish. In fact, you won't even notice a strong lemon flavor—everything just works. Set everything aside. Once the vegetables are tender add the olives, artichokes, lemon zest and raisins and let cook for another 5 minutes or so.

To garnish the tagine, chop the fresh herbs and zest the additional lemon, if using. And if adding chiles for more heat, thinly slice and save for garnishing the final dish. Once the dish has finished cooking, add the freshly chopped herbs and fold everything together. Taste for seasoning. Before serving finish with flakes sea salt. This tagine goes particularly well with couscous, but it also goes well with quinoa or your grain of choice. Enjoy!