To help celebrate their launch of 1000 ways to love your TOTAL online recipe collection I thought I would share my favourite dish we cooked that day, which was the spicy butternut squash tagine with toasted fennel seed yoghurt and cauliflower couscous:
Thank you to the oh-so-charming Paul Merrett for the recipe!
Spicy butternut squash tagine with toasted fennel seed yoghurt and cauliflower couscous
For the Spice Mix
½ tbsp of fennel seeds
2 pinches of chilli flakes
½ tbsp of cumin seeds
1 tsp of coriander seeds
1 inch of cinnamon
1 tsp of ground ginger
½ tbsp of paprika
For the Tagine
1 butternut squash, peeled and roughly cut into 3cm cubes
8 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red onion diced
1 yellow pepper, diced into 3 cm squares
1 red pepper, diced into 3cm squares
1¾ tin of chopped tomatoes
100g of dried apricots, halved
Approx 20 green olives
1 tin of chick peas
Olive oil (for frying) [Phil NB: cooking spray could be used]
For the Fennel Seed Yoghurt
200g of TOTAL Greek yoghurt
2 tsp of fennel seeds
½ tsp of smoked paprika
1 tbsp of coriander, chopped
1 tsp mint, chopped
For the Cauliflower Couscous
1 head of cauliflower
20 inch square of muslin
Dry fry, cool and grind all spices for the spice mix in the pestle and mortar. (Phil: this is a wonderful upper body workout!)
Dust the cubed butternut squash with a third of the spice mix and fry in batches until brown all over. At this point you are just ‘colouring’ your squash. Set aside.
(Phil: I accidentally put the whole spice mix in with the squash. It was awesome. We added more chilli and more paprika to the tagine when needed)
Heat a casserole and fry the garlic and red onion. Add the peppers. Add the tomatoes and bring the pot to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the dried apricots, olives and chickpeas. Add a little water at this point if required.
Add the pre roasted butternut and another third of the spice mix. Cook on until the butternut is just cooked (about 5 min). Check the seasoning and add a little salt and some more spice mix if required.
Toast the fennel seeds in a frying pan, cool and grind. Mix the yoghurt with the fennel seeds, paprika, mint and coriander and set aside.
Trim cauliflower florets from the stalk. Whizz up the florets to a crumb in a food processor.
Wrap the cauliflower couscous in the muslin and place in a colander over a pan of boiling water for approximately 5 minutes.
Serve the couscous and tagine with a dollop of fennel seed yoghurt on the side. It's so delicious, with so many different complementary flavours - sweet butternut, fiery heat from the chilli and smoked paprika, earthy cumin and cinnamon, richness and acidity from the tomatoes, soft apricots and olives that plump up in the sauce....divine, I'm telling you.
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| Photo courtesy of TOTAL/UrbanVox.net |
If you'd like any more of Paul's fantastic TOTAL recipes - there are heaps of veggie ones too - check out their website which has 1000 different recipes and ideas :)
What's your favourite way to enjoy TOTAL?