Quick Chickpea Tagine

Submitted by English_Rose

"Sample Middle Eastern cooking with this simple and quick-to-make chickpea dish by Mike Robinson."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 16
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 100 ml olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 1 (400 g) can chickpeas
• 100 g pitted green olives
• 1 bunch coriander, leaves and stems separated
• 2 preserved lemons, quartered, available from specialist stores
• 125 ml white wine
• 200 ml vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed, toasted
• 1 (4 cm) cinnamon sticks

• for the chili paste

• 3 red chilies, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 -2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1⁄2 lemon, juice of

directions

1. Heat the olive oil and add the chopped onions. Cover and cook until softened, but not coloured.
2. Add the peppers, chickpeas, tomatoes, olives, chopped coriander stalks, lemons, white wine, stock and the spices. Simmer for 20 minutes, until everything has cooked down and thickened.
3. While the chickpeas are cooking, pound the chillies and garlic with the olive oil and lemon juice to make a slack paste.
4. Stir the coriander leaves and chilli paste into the warm chick pea mixture and serve with flat breads.

Reviews

[Chef Kate]

I went back and forth on the number of stars and finally decided that five was truly the right number. The flavor of this tagine is brilliant and it is very simple to prepare. My hesitation involves small issues easily rectified. First, while there are tomatoes in the instructions, they do not appear on the ingredient list. I threw in about a cup of halved grape tomatoes. Second, the flavors are very intense and I believe the amount of chickpeas called for is inadequate--the blandness and the particular texture of the chickpeas is needed to balance against the peppers, preserved lemon and coriander. I added a second can of chickpeas to my cooked tagine and let it simmer a bit longer and it was perfect. My only other changes were simply matters of personal preferance -- I cut down considerably on the amount of olive oil and used only one (very hot!) chili in the chili paste. I'm sitting here sampling it now--it is SO good. Thanks, English Rose! BTW, I used French Tart's Recipe #209590.

 

[UberChef]

I made this for dinner last night and it came out great! It was even better for lunch today too. I used 2 cans of Chick Peas and added some ground coriander, and only half of the cilantro. I also was out of preserved lemon so I faked it by simmering 2 lemons quartered in a couple cups of water with 1/4 cup of salt for about 30 minutes. The flavor wasn't spot on, but it works in a pinch. Thanks for the recipe!