Breakfast Mac & Cheese
Servings: | 6 |
Time to Cook: | 30 |
Time to Prepare: | 15 |
This North African dish has more in common with an Italian frittata than a Moroccan tagine. Rather than being cooked in the conical ceramic Moroccan cooking vessel, this tajine is baked in the oven. It’s a warm medley of spices like cumin, turmeric and paprika with potatoes, cheese and chicken (though we have notes for a vegetarian option too). The perfect recipe for a cozy dinner or a hearty lunch!
While tajine is almost always made with meat of some kind, you can substitute more vegetables if you like. Try broccoli or cauliflower, as they hold up well during cooking and take on the flavour of the spices quite nicely.
Parsley is a defining flavour in this recipe, which is why there’s quite a lot of it being used. If you’re not a huge fan of parsley, or you want to tone down its impact on the dish a bit, try using about half as much. Note also that flat leaf (Italian) parsley tends to have a stronger and more distinctive flavour than curly parsley.
A 50:50 combination of mozzarella and emmental cheese works well, but you can use any relatively similar cheese(s) that you like. Cream cheeses are also commonly used. Note that 6 oz (175 g) works out to about 2 cups shredded, loosely packed.
Ground lamb can be substituted for chicken. Some variations like to add in chopped hard-boiled eggs, black olives, a few tablespoons of tomato paste, and/or harissa paste for some heat. If you have pre-cooked potatoes, you can add those instead of cooking them with the chicken, though you may find the finished dish has a somewhat different texture. If you have a particular ras-el-hanout spice blend you really like, you can consider using it in place of most (or even all) of the spice blend above, minus the salt.
Servings: | 4 |
Time to Cook: | 35 |
Time to Prepare: | 15 |