Spices for A Tagine

[Sita Harris]

What makes a basic or more elaborate tagging spice blend? So, that next time you want to make a tagine, you will not grab a ready made supermarket one. For one, you will never know what a mix of spices flavour for a real tagine tastes like, for two spices on a longer shelf life loose their flavour.

My years living in France, especially Paris, gave me the opportunity to learn more about the authentic spices from people of Maghreb origin-Tunis, Morocco, Algeria, which constitutes a large local population of the city. I also learnt about preserving my own lemons and made my own ras el hangout from scratch. Tagines are almost a signature dish of mine when I hold a large crowd to feed for a party. I get the usual query ‘ why doesn’t my tagine taste the same as yours?’ I would then ask about the spices and hear I get the tagine ready made spice follow a recipe etc. I would then tell people that spices are organic, they like to breathe, and staleness is one thing that kills their flavour. 
Since, am dealing with spices here, I will not give you a tagine recipe, but look at the ingredients for a blend. If you would like a recipe please wait for the next post. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message. 
A tagine takes a bunch of fresh spices ground together when you are cooking or a week prior to it. 
BASIC Tagine spices ~ For this you need: cumin and coriander seeds (toasted gently), fennel seeds, cayenne powder, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, black pepper, cloves and all spice. Please note that here the cumin seeds proportion is twice for the other ingredients. Grind all in a powder and store in tight fitted jar. 
The rest of the ingredients are chopped onions, garlic, and ginger, preserved lemons, green olives, turmeric. 
If you don’t have a tagine pot, you can make it in a close fit heavy bottom pan.