Moroccan Meatball and Egg Tagine and The hundred foot journey

Have you seen the movie The hundred foot journey? I love movies that involve cooking, restaurants, different cultures, love… And this movie was the perfect mixture of all of that! And watching this movie actually came to cooking a quite new and exciting recipe for me: Moroccan Meatball and egg Tagine. But first, the movie!!

Starring Helen Mirrel, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon and Om Puri, this movie tells the story about an indian family that goes to Europe to establish an Indian Restaurant. Hassan, the cook, is not very keen on the idea of staying in France, but by a fortunate accident they meet the beautiful Marguerite, and she brings them to this awfully cute little town, with typical food markets, and the most smart Restaurant in miles, Michelin-starred. And guess which place does Papa choose to establish their indian restaurant? a 100 foot in front of them.

It’s just one of those films where you feel like you can even smell the ingredients, you know? the food, the spices… and you just want to watch the movie and go cook! So there I was, fascinated by all the spices Hassan uses, and I decided to cook something especial: not indian, not french, but Moroccan: Meatballs and egg Tagine!

The key to this dish is the broad arrange of spices that you’ll use. Here you have the ingredients:

For the Tomato Sauce:

2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
A pinch of ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of salt
A pinch of black pepper
A pinch of cayenne
750 g of whole canned tomatoes in their juice
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

Meatballs, and 2 eggs.

Let’s start adding the spices:

Take a saucepan and heat the olive oil. Moroccans actually use a certain pan to cook this dish, it is called a Tagine Pan, and it sort of looks like this pan on the right. Very crafted, usually decorated, and perfect to cook this dish. Of course I couldn’t find something like this on time, so I used a normal frying pan, and the result was also fine! Let’s continue with the sauce by adding the garlic (finelly chopped) and let it hang in there with the hot oil for a few minutes. Add the spices, and mix well! It’s very nice to smell each spice before adding it to the pan, this dish smells amazing! Wait a few minutes, and then add the tomatoes. At a low heat, wait for 15 minutes, with the pan covered.

Now it’s time to add the meatballs. At a low heat, let it boil there for 30 minutes.

Finally, add the 2 eggs into the sauce, and let it boil until the whites are set.

The result is really tasty, a lot of flavours and a smell that takes you to a moroccan market in Marrakech. When cooking a dish from a foreign country or culture, I always try to look for a typical song or music style and have it as backround while cooking. I tried some Chill Out – Lounge Moroccan music, and felt like I was there!