Duck Tagine With Harissa, Almonds & Dates

This stripped back duck tagine takes a slightly lighter approach to but it still packs a punch featuring Harissa, almonds & dates.

North African Duck Breast Stew.

A tagine is a dish named after the receptacle it is cooked in… A conical pot that returns the condensate from the recipe back into the pan.

However, the name has come to signify a simple stew, rich with the flavours of North Africa or Persia.

This version is pretty light and in comparison to my something like my butternut squash tagine and sweet potato tagine.

This version features pretty classic flavours and textures.

Almonds, harissa paste, honey and dates work with a load of onions to create a great base for the richness of duck breast.

The Duck Breast.

Whether you are cooking a Moroccan lamb tagine, chicken tagine or even my rabbit tagine the meat is usually slow cooked in the stew.

This recipe takes a slightly different approach.

It is developed to be a pretty quick dinner and a light dinner but still hit all of those North African flavour triggers.

So we begin by starting the duck breast in a cold pan in a similar way that I do with my duck with orange sauce recipe.

This helps to render out the fat, which we drain off. It is the same reason that I remove the skin entirely from my tamarind duck leg recipe.

In this isntance, though we keep the skin as we are able to keep a nice texture when cooking the duck.

The timing of this recipe results in a duck breast that is just past medium.

If you want to take it to medium then you can cook it for an extra 10 minutes or so.

If you want it cooked less then you will need to cook the base for a while first and add the duck later.

Serving Suggestions.

Tagines have big flavours and for that reason, I prefer blank canvases as side dishes.

In this instance, I served this with a herby buttered couscous, but also serve it regularly with bulgur wheat.

Timing-wise, both can be comfortably made around this recipe making it a simple complete meal to make.

Although you could just as easily get some baby carrots and use the spicing from this Moroccan carrot recipe to make a vegetable side.