Festive enough for Shabbat dinner or easy enough for weeknights, Meatball Tagine is versatile, fragrant, and very savory. Serve with couscous, rice, or roasted sweet potatoes. For best results, use a great quality extra virgin olive oil. We love Colavita!
Meatball Tagine
Servings
6 Servings
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground turkey beef, or lamb
- ½ cup fresh soft bread crumbs I use leftover challah and whirr it up in my food processor
- 3 tablespoons cold water
- 2 whole eggs whisked
- ¼ cup fresh chopped mint or 1 tablespoon dried
- ¼ cup fresh chopped parsley
- ¼ cup fresh chopped cilantro
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped dill or 2 teaspoons dried
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped savory or fresh oregano or 2 teaspoons
- ¼ cup chopped scallions
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large red onion thinly sliced
- 1 fennel bulb sliced
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 medium carrots sliced
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- ½ cup raisins I love golden raisins for their color and complex flavor
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas
- 1 15-ounce can whole tomatoes, broken up with your hands
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 3 teaspoons ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Pinch crushed red pepper optional
- ½ teaspoon saffron threads
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Garnish: fresh mint fresh parsley, and fresh cilantro
Instructions
Meatballs:
- Place turkey, bread crumbs, water, eggs, mint, parsley, cilantro, dill, oregano, scallions, salt, and pepper in a large mixing bowl and combine thoroughly.
- Dip your hands in cold water and gently roll the meat mixture to form meatballs or use a scoop to form meatballs.
- Heat a large sauté pan, lightly coated with evoo, over medium heat. Brown meatballs in the pan about 5 to 7 minutes. Alternatively, preheat oven to 350°F. Heat a baking sheet with evoo in preheated oven. When the sheet is hot, add meatballs and return the sheet to the 350°F oven, occasionally shaking the pan until meatballs are browned on all sides.) After browned, transfer meatballs to a tagine, casserole dish, or Dutch oven.
Braising Liquid:
- In the same pan that was used for browning the meatballs, add additional evoo if needed, add onion and fennel, and sauté until they are caramelized and medium brown. Transfer sautéed onion and fennel to the tagine, casserole dish, or Dutch oven.
- Add more evoo to the pan, if needed, and sauté carrots until they are browned. Add garlic and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer carrot mixture to the tagine.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Add raisins, chickpeas, tomatoes, broth, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, crushed red pepper, saffron, salt, and pepper to the tagine and cover. Place the tagine in the preheated oven and cook at 350°F for 1 hour until the meatballs are cooked through and the vegetables are soft.
- Garnish with additional mint, parsley and cilantro. Serve with couscous.
That must have been a mistake, I removed it, and yes a Dutch Oven would be great.
A couple of comments/questions. Firstly, what is meant in the ingredient list what is meat, dried? Secondly, one would need a very large tagine to fit all of this in; I’d use a DO.. Other than that, it sounds and looks delicious. I can’t wait to try it.