Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Moroccan style vegetable stew

We had our first reasonable harvest from the vege patch a couple of days ago. As in, more than a tiny tomato that you carefully cut in half and share as a treat!
Tonight we had a feast using homegrown eggplants, sweet long red peppers and a red onion. I added a few other things as well, but it was rather special to eat a meal made of your own produce! It was really yummy, too!

Moroccan Style Vegetable Stew
(serves 4)

1 red onion, chopped
1 large or 2 small eggplant, diced & salted for 20 mins, rinsed
1 large red capsicum or equivalent, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 heaped tsp Ras el Hanout* or other Moroccan spice mix
400g tin diced tomatoes (or equivalent fresh if you have them in the garden!)
400g tin chickpeas, rinsed
1/2 cup green olives
1/4 cup finely chopped corriander
Natural yoghurt, to serve
Cous cous, to serve

Cook onion in a large frypan with a lid until beginning to turn translucent. Add eggplant and cook for 4-5 mins. Add capsicum, garlic and spice mix and cook until spice mix is lovely and fragrant. Add tomatoes, chickpeas and about 1 cup water. Cook, covered, for about 15 mins or until eggplant is properly cooked through. If the mixture is looking dry, add some more water. Add olives, most of the corriander and check seasoning.

Serve the stew on cous cous with a generous dollop of yoghurt and sprinkle over the remaining corriander. Enjoy!
*Ian Hemphill of Herbie's Spices says that Ras el Hanout is considered to be the ultimate in spice blends, can be made up of over 20 different spices, and 'is subtly curry-like with a spicy yet floral fragrance and robust yet subtle flavour' (Spice Notes, p. 471). If you can get your hands on some, do, it's worth it!

P.S. Apparently when you're 13 months old, chickpeas are de-li-cious!

6 comments:

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Oh looks delicious!! Might give that a go, thanks for the recipe. So much flavour, love Posie

yardage girl said...

Yummo - that looks great. Even better when the little ones like it too! Nic

Nate @ House of Annie said...

That looks absolutely delicious. I've not heard of this Ras el Hanout spice blend before. Wonder if Penzey's carries it.

Since you're using homegrown ingredients, would you like to enter this post in our Grow Your Own roundup this month? Full details at

http://chezannies.blogspot.com/2010/01/rambutans-plus-grow-your-own.html

Cathie said...

i am over 13mths & I think they are de-li-cious aswell :)
i love your homegrown stash & that it's vegetarian, yay!
we had this last week & it was very comforting.

Pippi creates said...

Looks yum. It is a great feeling to make a masterpiece from something grown from your own garden. Currently I am enjoying home grown tomato salads everyday.Very yum!

Wendy said...

Oh, yum! Chickpeas are de-licious at any age...they're my favorites!