Quick Tagine with Lemon & Olive Millet

Unlike slow-cooked red meat Tagines, this recipe can be cooked on the hob in 45 minutes and you still get to enjoy those lovely sweet warming Moroccan flavours.

For this Tagine, you can either use chicken thighs (organic preferably) or if you want to keep it vegetarian/vegan, you can use chickpeas and vegetable stock, I've detailed how to make both versions below.

Ingredients (Serves 4)
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch dried chilli flakes (up to you how large a pinch!)
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 Sweet Potato cut into chunks
2 Carrots cut into chunks
150g dried apricots and/or prunes (unsulphured if possible), roughly chopped into quarters
The juice of half an orange
600ml chicken or vegetable stock
6 chicken thighs, skinless boneless, cut into chunks OR 1 tin of chickpeas
A handful of torn fresh coriander leaves

Heat some oil in a large flameproof casserole over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, ground spices, and chilli flakes and fry until the onions have softened.

Stir in the tomato purée, orange juice, stock, dried fruits, sweet potato and carrots and bring to a gentle simmer. Partially cover the pan and continue to simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the chicken if using, re-cover the casserole and continue simmering for 20 minutes removing the lid for the last 10 if there is still a lot of liquid. If you're using chickpeas, continue to simmer the fruits and veg for 15 minutes before adding the chickpeas for the final 5 minutes of cooking.

Garnish with fresh coriander and serve with Lemon and Olive Millet

Cooked Millet

Some reasons for including millet in our diets:

Millet is easily digestible. It is gluten free and non allergenic

Millet is one of the few grains which is alkalizing to the body.

Millet is high in silicon which benefits your hair, skin, nails, teeth and eye health.

Millet contains tryptophan which stimulates the production of the brain hormone serotonin, calming your moods and aiding sleep.

Millet’s high protein content (compared to other grains, at 15 %) makes it an excellent addition to a vegetarian diet.

Millet has anti-fungal properties and is especially regarded for the treatment of candida yeast overgrowth in the gut. Yeast thrive on all the refined sugars we consume and can actually create sugar cravings within us. Eating millet could help to reduce these cravings.

Millet contains B vitamins, and high amounts of iron, magnesium, and potassium.

Lemon & Olive Millet

Ingredients
200g millet, well rinsed
500ml water
2tbsp chopped pitted kalamata olives (about 6 olives)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
A handful of chopped fresh parsley

Place the millet in a saucepan over a medium heat and toast for a couple of minutes. Add water and bring to the boil.

Reduce heat, cover and cook until the millet has absorbed all the water (about 20 minutes)

Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, and add olives, lemon juice and parsley. Easy.