Tagine

Tagine is the name of both the clay pot and the dish cooked in it. The tastiest tagine dishes I’ve ever eaten have been homemade. In restaurants, the quality has been mixed.

At a restaurant in Beni Ensar, I used to eat cheap tagine. 25 dirham if I remember correctly. It was flavourful, filling and cooked just right. But in many restaurants I’ve been served tagine with just a tiny bit of chicken. And the vegetables have sometimes been mushy and tasteless.

In Marrakesh I ate vegetarian tagine for over a hundred dirham, by the sea in Tagazout for sixty dirham. It was perfectly fine. But not like the cheap tagine I ate in Beni Ensar. And nowhere near as good as homemade tagine.

I’ve stopped ordering tagine in restaurants, simply because it’s too much of a gamble. Tagine usually costs about the same as a quarter of a grilled chicken. The meat in the grilled chicken usually tastes better, and is more filling. If I want vegetables wiht my food, I’d rather have a Moroccan salad.