You may not instantly think ‘Suffolk’ when you think of making a tagine. But when I got my hands on Suffolk-based The Fresh Sauce Co’s delicious and aromatic tagine sauce; I felt a recipe was in order. As ever I’m on a mission to reduce food miles and promote Suffolk producers and companies so I’ve made every effort to use local ingredients.
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
1 small red onion (grown in my garden)
1 clove of garlic (grown in my garden)
2 tbs Hill Farm cold-pressed rapeseed oil
2 chicken breasts (Sutton Hoo Chicken)
100g dried peas (Hodmedod’s)
1 sachet of Tagine sauce (The Fresh Sauce Co)
50g dried apricots
Optional – handful of parsley or coriander (grown on my kitchen windowsill)
Optional – 20g Butter (Fen Farm Dairy)
Crusty Bread (Cake Shop, Woodbridge)
Suffolk Quinoa (Hodmedod’s)
Method
Pre-soak your peas for around 6-12hrs to speed up cooking time for the tagine later.
In a heavy pan add a good glug of Hill Farm oil and a small knob of Fen Farm butter. Add the chopped onions, garlic and Sutton Hoo chicken to brown.
Add the soaked peas and sauce sachet and stir. Lower the temperature, put a lid on the pan and allow to simmer for 15-20mins. This really helps the chicken soak up all those aromatic flavours!
Finely chop the dried apricots and put aside to stir in at the last-minute.
This recipe is great to eat with a lump of crusty bread or some quinoa. I used both and went for The Cake Shop’s fantastic sourdough and a generous helping of Fen Farm raw butter as well as Hodmedod’s Quinoa.
To cook your quinoa; rinse and add to a pan of water. (Use around 50g of quinoa per person and 2x as much water.). Bring to the boil and leave to simmer on a low heat for 15mins. Keep an eye on it and add more water if it’s drying out. You can also add stock for extra flavour!
Serve the tagine and accompaniments in a bowl with an optional sprinkling of parsley or coriander. Enjoy!