Tag(ine)..you're it

Ever since DB~ and I went to Kous Kous Cafe in Mt. Lebanon, I've been fascinated by tagines. The tagine is the popular cooking vessel in Moroccan cuisine that functions as both the place the food is cooked in and also the serving dish itself.

I've cruised around the Internets pricing them and hemming and hawing about buying a couple. I wondered how much I would really use them. I brokered a price for 2 at the Pittsburgh Public Market in the Strip a few months ago, but backed out when I got tagine cold feet.

My birthday was last month and sure enough The Squiggle got me 2 for my gift. She's good like that. We've been running around like madmen this past month with wedding stuff, selling my house, buying a new house, finalizing the honeymoon, so they have been patiently sitting in my basement waiting to be used.

That time was last night. I decided to go with a safe recipe, so to speak, from my tagine cookbook that DB~ also got me. It was a recipe similar to one that I had a Kous Kous Cafe when we went. It was a tomato based sauce with vegetables (in this case eggplant and yellow squash), onion, shallot, cilantro, and Moroccan-style seasonings like cumin and tumeric.

You place the tagine directly on the stove top. They are clay pots with holes at the top to allow heat to vent slightly. They can also be placed directly in the oven. Once the shallot and onion softened up in the tagine with some olive oil and butter, I added the seasonings, eggplant, squash, and canned tomatoes with their juice. I let this all cook with the lid closed for 40 minutes. After those 40 minutes, I added the fresh chopped cilantro and cooked that for 10 more minutes.


After placing a trivet down, we took the tagine directly to the table and spooned our portions out of it and on to the plates. I served couscous as a side dish, with a red pepper/feta dip and crackers as well.

I will absolutely be using the tagine more in the future, especially in the fall. I see a very hearty short rib with wine sauce and root vegetables being prepared in it. Some lamb and squash would be tasty too.

Kous Kous Cafe - a claustrophobic treat in Mt. Lebanon

Last night, DB~ had to work late so we agreed to meet somewhere in the Mt. Lebanon area to eat. After much list-making and brainstorming, we decided on Kous Kous Cafe at 665 Washington Road (main drag through Mt. Lebo).

Kous Kous Cafe is a Moroccan restaurant that has been open for roughly 7 or 8 months. We think it is in what used to be the old Enrico Biscotti storefront. There are roughly 12 tables in the restaurant, which is about 4 too many. At one point in the meal, I stood up to let two people next to us leave. The servers are deft at manuveuring through the narrow aisle to deliver people and food to their destinations. With all of you jammed in to a small place, it gets loud.

But it's worth it.

Some of you may be wondering "So what is Moroccan cuisine?". Restaurants like Aladdin's (up the street from Kous Kous) have opened the door for usually non-adventurous eaters to try a nice, safe entry into Middle Eastern cuisine. Kous Kous has elements of the foods you would find at Aladdin's, but is a very authentic homemade style of its own.

Moroccan cuisine involves some of the more esoteric spices that many of us do not use on a daily basis, such as saffron, cumin, and turmeric. These give the rices and other dishes a more aromatic and fuller flavor that what you may be used to.

We overheard during our dinner there (not hard to do!) that the chef and his mother prepare the bases to the dishes fresh each day. After you order, everything is assembled and cooked for your meal.

One of the staples of Moroccan cuisine is the tagine. A tagine is a clay, conical pot that is not only the cooking vessel, but also the serving dish. Its' shape allows the food to cook as a stew-type of meal, while pushing the condensation off to the sides.

DB~ chose the salmon tagine. (Side note - I'm starting to think that I'm dating a kodiak bear. Her salmon consumption is off-the-charts. As long as there is either salmon or a portabello mushroom dish on the menu, I know she'll be happy wherever we go. Last year, she visited a salmon spawning ladder ground. I was concerned she was going to reach in and grab/eat one raw. She didn't.)

Anyway...it was fantastic. When you remove the top of the tagine, you were greeted with a flavorful waft of spices from the grilled vegetables and rice. The pieces of salmon were delicate and interwoven with the wide variety of vegetables (red pepper, green pepper, onion strands, carrot chunks, potatoes, squash, and zucchini).

I went with the namesake of the restaurant...a vegetable cous cous. I don't know why I didn't go with the lamb cous cous. I'm not turning into a damn, dirty hippie, I hope. The vegetable cous cous was served in a shallow dish with a simple yet flavor-packed tomato-based sauce. A mound of delicious cous cous sat on top and placed around the perimeter were the same series of grilled vegetables as described above.

As an appetizer, we went with the Moroccan platter of hummus, roasted eggplant, and grilled peppers. This was served with pita chips for dipping.

All in all, it was a fantastic meal. Minor complaint -- it seemed as if everything was $1-2 dollars more than it should have been. For instance, my vegetable kous kous was $16...that seems a little high for a non-meat dish. The platter was $9...again same concept. However, as I said, it was worth it. It's not as if there are a lot of other Moroccan restaurants to try in the city of Pittsburgh, so give it a shot.

Just wear your deodorant and hope that your other adjoining patrons did the same.