How To: Tagine Cooking

What we've selected to do for you is pigeon because it's so different and it's a little bit quicker than usual tagine cooking. So, what we have here in the pan is the carcass of the tagine and we're going to make a sauce first and then at the last minute, we're going to pan fry the breasts and sit them on top of the sauce. So, we're going to fry off the carcasses first.

So, carcasses go into the pan – you're going to put a little bit of oil in there? A little bit of light olive oil, and we're going to start to fry off the carcasses. And what we've done beforehand is we've removed the breasts from the carcass. So, we've browned up the carcass so that it is golden on all sides and then we're going to turn the heat down and add all the other ingredients.

And the first thing that Flip is putting in is grated onion, and this is the grated flesh of one big, white onion. Isn't that, Flip? Yeah. Sorry about that, going to put that right in there, and then we're going to add a couple of tablespoons of ground ginger.

And this makes the base of a green olive tagine, so you can use chicken thighs with this, except you would cook the chicken thighs for longer in the sauce than we're going to with the pigeon. Pigeons take very little time to cook. But you can also make it with chicken thighs.

And the next thing that's going in is some garlic - that's three cloves of garlic that have been very finely chopped. And then, we're going to add some saffron, and the saffron has been re-hydrated in some water for a few hours. It does take a little bit of time.

That took a lovely colour, didn't it? And a great taste, doesn't it? It's a very acquired taste. You'd not think that with saffron. And then, we're going to add about a glass of white wine, aren't we? Yes, going to turn it up a bit.

And the reason why we grate the onion is because it gives the sauce a thicker texture. So, we're going to pop in the white wine, you can use all stock but we prefer to use a bit of booze whenever we can, don't we? Turn it up a little bit. Get that bubbling away, you want to reduce that.

And then, we're going to pop in some stock, just about 100 milligrams? Yes. And then, we're going to let the carcasses - if you can look into the pan in here, we're going to let the carcasses mingle with those flavours and reduce down, the sauce will reduce down, the carcasses will impart the flavour, we're going to let that all reduce and cook for about fifteen minutes. Yes.

So, we've just put some olive oil on to the pigeon breast, we've got the pan very, very hot and we're going to sear them skin side down in the pan. And we don't want the pigeon breasts overcooked. They should be pink in the middle.

Yes. So, skin side down, nice and hot - what would you say? Couple of minutes each side? Couple of minutes - once they're in there, don't move them. You really want them to get the skin that lovely golden brown.

So, while we're waiting for those to sear off, we're going to just remove the carcasses from the pan and just discard them. We're going to get rid of those. Lovely smells, don't you think? Will you pass me that tin foil? And then, we're going to set - once the pigeon breasts have cooked for a couple of minutes on each side - we're going to set them in, we're going to wrap them in some foil so that they rest, should always rest meat once you've cooked it, and chicken.

It allows the meat to relax and the flavour is less tensed in texture, isn't it? Yes. And then, once Flip has done that, we're going to add to this pan the juice of a lemon with a dessert spoon of honey. We're going to add some green olives.

And then, we're going to taste the sauce. And then, we add seasoning once we've added the olives because the olives can sometimes be really salty. So, make sure that you taste before you season this dish.

You can put them in now, actually, and then we'll be ready. So that's the lemon juice - could you pass me a spoon please,