Tomato, spinach & egg tagine
Posted by kathryn in Vegetables, Eggs and Dinners
I’ve had some lovely entries for the Pantry Challenge. I’m in the process of collating them and putting together the round-up – which I’ll post on Thursday.
In the meantime though I have a recipe of my own.
I’ve been making variations on this tagine for years.
It started with a recipe I spotted in a North African cookbook for vegetarian kofta balls in a tomato sauce. The meal was finished with whole eggs, cracked into the dish and poached in the tomato sauce. This strategy has stayed with me ever since – as it’s an easy way to bump up the protein in a meal.
This dish takes about 30 minutes to cook, but it’s not one you need to hover over. Plus it’s a one-pot meal, which cuts down on the washing up.
While it might be put together from the pantry, it’s by no means nutritionally second-rate.
Tomato, spinach & egg tagine
Serves 2
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled, halved & cut into thin half-moons
- 2 teaspoons of Moroccan spice mix
- 1 × 400g tin tomatoes
- ¼ cup frozen peas
- ½ block of frozen spinach
- ¼ cup basmati rice
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 4 eggs
Sauté the onions: Place a medium-sized pan, with a lid, over a medium-high heat. When hot, add the olive oil and onions. Cook the onions, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes, until softened.
Cook rest of vegetables: Add the spice mix and continue cooking for 30 seconds – stirring the onions, until they’re fully coated in spices. Add the tomatoes, peas, spinach, rice and ½ cup of water. Don’t worry about breaking up the spinach, just turn the heat down slightly and place the lid on top. Leave to simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the eggs: Add the soy sauce and stir through. With the back of a spoon make 4 “wells” or holes in the top of the tomatoes and spinach. Break an egg into each well. Place the lid back on and leave to gently poach for 7 – 8 minutes. Once the eggs are cooked, serve immediately.
30 September, 2008
Comments
It sounds like a great recipe… I’m wondering if it would work with the kale I have in my fridge instead of spinach. Just one suggestion though – it seems a bit prescriptive to specify that you must use frozen peas and spinach and tinned tomatoes. Frozen peas and tinned tomatoes are reasonably common but I would regard frozen spinach as a specialty purchase. What would be really helpful is to give the quantities for fresh as well as frozen so we have a choice and can use whatever is on hand.
It’s a good idea, this tangine. I’ve never heard it called that before but I’ve used this technique with great results. It’s nice to have some crusty bread around too…whole grain of course!
Love the idea of cracking eggs on top!
yum that looks delicious!
This recipe is my entry to the Pantry Challenge the purpose of which is to show what can be made from a core group of long-life ingredients. The sort of things you can keep in your pantry and freezer. These ingredients can then be pulled out when you’re late home from work, or haven’t had time to do the shopping and still be used in a healthy and tasty meal.
I’ve certainly made variations of this using fresh spinach and silverbeet – and they work really well. But these short-lived fresh ingredients don’t fit into the purpose of the pantry challenge. Hence the use of tinned and frozen ingredients.
Michelle: a “tagine” is a slightly glorified term for the recipe above!
Yummo Kathryn! It’s even kid friendly which is very appealing, and I actually do have all the ingredients to make it which is even better! Tomorrows dinner solved!
YUM! I just made this with my usual technique of admiring the recipe and then totally ignoring the ingredients to use what I have in the fridge instead. Mine contained: red onion, fresh spinach, 3 fresh tomatoes, asparagus and capsicum.
I can see myself making this once a week for quite a while…
mexican style with kidney beans, capsicum and corn
chinese style with spring onions, mushrooms, fish sauce and gai lan
spanish style with black olives, potato and chilli
italian style with herbs, mushrooms, capsicum
“nicoise” with green beans, tuna and anchovy
north african with chickpeas, spinach, sultanas and toasted almonds
mmmmmm!
Exactly Gwyneth, it is such an adaptable dish and I like the way you’re thinking. At different times when making this dish I’ve used:
It’s always easy and it’s always good.
is the rice already cooked?
Jill – the rice is not cooked before you add it to the pot. Instead it cooks in the combination of water and juices from the canned tomato.
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