Tagine Cooking…Chicken Thighs, Sausage, and Root Vegetables

I have to limit myself to how often I use my tagine. Otherwise, I’ll leave it on the stovetop permanently, always at the ready, as it cooks like nobody’s business.

It’s a truly wonderful piece of cookware. Crockery. Whatever, it’s awesome.

At first glance, the tagine is a strange bird, this weird shaped vessel that makes little to no sense. You’ll think you can’t fit much in it’s bowl, that it will be too confusing, that it takes some kind of ancient trickery to cook in it.

You’ll be wrong.

You can fit an entire chicken in it, or, as I did here, 6 chicken thighs and a pile of veggies. You can brown your meat in it before you set it to simmer. You can keep the heat down low and let it do it’s thing for hours. It’s basically a prehistoric slow cooker without a cord.

I love it.

There are several tagines on the market, and range dramatically in price. personally, I own the Emile Henry, and it is a godsend. I’ve also used the Le Creuset, and I love it dearly. I also found a few on Amazon for a good price, so if you are afraid of the tagine, these might be a good way to get your feet wet without spending a small fortune. I can’t say enough good things about mine though, so I recommend spending a little more for a lifetime piece that you’ll get years of use from.

Instead of doing a full on recipe, I thought I’d just walk you through how to cook with it. it’s super easy, NOT SCARY, in fact, you’ll probably find it the easiest cooking method you’ve ever used.

First you need to grab your chicken. I used 6 chicken thighs, and it was a good fit. You don’t want it to be too full – use just enough to make sure you can brown the meat easily. I browned mine in a flavored olive oil from Nudo Italia and a little bit of butter. Once it was browned, I left it to simmer on medium low for about an hour.

See? Easy.

While it simmered away, I chopped up some carrots, onions and potatoes. A few mushrooms would have been great, too. A little butter, salt, pepper, some garlic and fresh oregano – I tossed all of that in with some Johnsonville Sausage thirty minutes before I wanted dinner to be ready.

If I can cook in a tagine, YOU can cook in a tagine.

Give it a try!