Lunch!

I have officially been in Morocco a little over six months now and about three months of them living on my own.

So after three months I have finally gotten the right seasoning/ingredients and proportions to make a good tajine!

First of all, you're probably wondering what a tajeen is. Notice I have spelled it a few different ways. That's because it doesn't really matter how it's spelled. Moheem- (the point:) A tajine is a traditional Moroccan dish, but not traditional in that it's only for tourists and people don't really eat it, but it is a very common lunch here.

It is made in a round dish, usually clay, but my tajeen, for example, is metal. And the lid is conical. It's a bunch of vegetables, oil, water, and spices. There are different kinds of tajeens here depending on personal preference. The most common one has a potato base. Now, most people put meat in the tajeen, commonly chicken but any meat or fish will work. Since I rarely buy meat because I don't have a refrigerator, all my tagines thus far have been all vegetables.

How I made my tagine: first I put a few dollops of vegetable oil in the dish and then some water. Then I added a good seasoning I call "yellow stuff" and then a seasoning called "knorr" but pronounced KAH-nor. It's kind of like a bouillon cube...

[An aside about spices: Now, when I first started experimenting with tajeen making, I just added this-and-that spices that Melanie, the previous volunteer, had left in the kitchen- anything that looked right. One thing I thought was really making the flavor of the tajines was this brownish/whitish "spice." I added it every time. One day Erika, the closest (by far!) volunteer to me and a cooking expert, visited me. I showed her my tajine method including that special seasoning and she looked at me and said,
"Abby, are you being serious?"
"yeah....why?"
"because that's bread yeast."]

Soon after adding the spices, oil, and water. I add a sliced onion and some garlic. I covered it and let it stay there boiling over the flame while I chopped up the other vegetables. The great thing about the tajine is you really can add whatever you want. I added carrots and potatoes first (since they take longer to cook) then I added zucchini and tomatoes. You can also add in whatever portions you want. I prefer to make enough that it will be dinner as well as lunch. I really like adding bell peppers too if I have any in the kitchen. It's kind of an-everything-except-the-kitchen-sink dish.

Then you leave it burning over a low flame for as long as it takes until the vegetables are soft. Covered the whole time, preferably. How long? Who knows. I am not a slave to the clock as I was in the states. All I know is I have at least a two hour lunch break and that is enough time.

Then you take the tajeen to the table, tear your bread (khobs), and dig in. We do not eat with forks and knives here. Just with bread. While I'm American and own forks and knives, the tajine tastes much better eaten with bread and my own two hands. Generally then I'll sit in the living room and watch the previous night's Daily Show, one of the few networks that will permit someone outside the U.S. to watch their show.

The reason I'm being so wishy-washy about the measurements is because it is really up to personal taste. Most people would probably add some salt but I'm a purist and like my vegetables to taste like vegetables. Plus, here you don't really measure exactly; it's all about eye-balling it. Besides, it'd be metric anyway.

Is this post going to allow you to make your own tajine/tajeen/tagine? No, but at least you'll understand the process more or less.

Here are some visual aids!! Good Photos with captions: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232930&id=18806879&l=6c9081c7da