Fish Tagine with Potatoes

This Fish Tagine with Potatoes is one of my all time favourites, with its sharp and piquant flavours. The potatoes add a creamy touch as well as lending bulk to the dish.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Moroccan Fish Tagine with Potatoes
Fish Tagine

Fish Tagine Recipe

All the ingredients in this fish tagine are pretty easy to come by, any firm white fish will do perfectly, although my favourite is monkfish. You can also use cod, haddock or mahi mahi, just to name a few common ones in my part of the world.

Besides the fish, we also have potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and olives. The potatoes are sliced thinly and help to give the sauce some character.

In the summer, when beautiful, fleshy and fruity tomatoes abound, I love using a combination of coloured cherry type tomatoes, for a pretty effect. You can go with cherry or regular tomatoes, it really doesn’t matter.

One final ingredient that is optional in this fish tagine, is pickled chilli (pepper). I love it, and because I grow chillies every summer, I always have some pickled ones in storage. They are, however, very easy to come by at delis or the Mexican aisle of supermarkets.

I find these chillies add a fantastically hot and sour dimension, which I simply adore. You can leave them out, if you like. If you do use them, make sure you get the whole ones, not the cut ones, which will just overpower everything else.

Chermoula, North African Marinade
Chermoula, North African marinade

Chermoula

In today’s fish tagine recipe, we start off with making some chermoula, that delicious North African marinade, to first flavour the fish with. You can click on the link above to read more about chermoula and also for a couple of recipes.

We will be making yet another slightly different one here, see image, below. Variety being the spice of life and all that!

And to change it up a little, we shall do away with an actual tagine today, and cook the recipe in a deep, wide frying pan or a wide, shallow casserole dish. Anything that measures about 22 cm (9″) and has a depth of about 6cm (2.5″), give or take. With a lid.

Moroccan Fish Tagine with Potatoes
doesn’t that look amazing?

How to serve this Fish Tagine with?

To many non North Africans, couscous is probably the go-to carb for tagine recipes. While couscous is perfect with just about any tagine recipe, as is white rice (brown just doesn’t soak up the subtle flavours), one of the best ways to enjoy tagine dishes is with bread. Whatever bread you have at hand will work: white or brown.

In North Africa, when you order a tagine recipe, of whatever inclination, you’re always given Khobz (khubz), the ubiquitous round bread found from Morocco to the other end of the Arabian peninsula. Because let’s face it, tagine recipes don’t come with a whole lot of gravy, you are supposed to scoop up the contents of the tagine and mop up the sauce with the bread in your hand. That’s the best way to enjoy a tagine.

Except for this lamb tagine recipe, which was specifically made with my gravy-loving family in mind!

There you go, folks, another tagine recipe in your repertoire. Shall we get cooking?

If you like the recipe, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Thank you!

And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood

Lin xx

Fish Tagine with Potatoes

Delicious fish tagine recipe. With added potatoes and vegetables, this fish tagine is full of sharp and piquant flavours. Perfect with bread or couscous!
5 from 20 votes
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Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Moroccan (North African)
Keyword: fish, tagine
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Marinating the Fish: 1 hour
Total Time: 45 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 241kcal
Author: Azlin Bloor

Ingredients

  • 500 g firm, white fish like monkfish or cod in bite-sized portions
  • 2 medium potatoes
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 red capsicum bell pepper
  • 1 green capsicum
  • 250 ml water
  • 16 cherry tomatoes or 3 medium sized ones
  • a handful pitted black olives
  • 1 tsp salt
  • half tsp coarsely ground black pepper

To Serve/Garnish

  • 3 sprigs flat or curly parsley finely chopped
  • 2 sprigs fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
  • 4 whole pickled chillies optional

Chermoula

  • 1 small handful coriander leaves cilantro
  • 1 small handful flat leaf parsley or curly
  • 1 pinch saffron
  • 2 medium cloves garlic
  • 1 red chilli
  • 3 Tbsp EV olive oil
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • half tsp salt

Instructions

Chermoula

  • Place everything into a chopper and blitz to a fairly smooth paste.

Prep Work

  • Rub the fish thoroughly with half the chermoula paste.
  • Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for 1 hour. If you don't have the time, then for as long as you can, while getting all the other ingredients ready.
  • Peel and slice the potatoes into fairly thin rounds, about half a cm thick (about ¼ inch). You could also leave the skin on, just scrub the potatoes clean.
  • Peel and chop the onion. It doesn’t have to be too fine.
  • Slice the capsicums (bell peppers) in half and then into slices about 1cm wide (just under an inch).

Cooking the Fish Tagine

  • When the hour is up, heat the olive oil in your chosen pan (tagine, dutch ovem regular saucepan, or a deep frying pan) on medium heat and sauté the onions for 1 minute.
  • Add the potatoes, capsicums and the leftover chermoula and fry for 1 more minute, stirring and coating the vegetables.
  • Add the water, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat right down, cover and simmer for 15 minutes until your potatoes are almost cooked. Pierce the thickest one with a knife to check. The potatoes will still have to cook with the fish, so it's ok for them to be a little uncooked at this stage.
  • Add the tomatoes and stir to mix and leave to cook for 2 minutes.
  • Now scoop out half the mixture into a bowl and set aside.
  • Add the marinated fish and all its marinade juice into the pan.
  • Very gently, stir the fish to coat with the lovely sauce. Be gentle so as not to break the fish and potatoes up.
  • Top the fish with the potato mix that you took out earlier.
  • Scatter the olives all over, followed by the pickled chillies.
  • The whole mix should be bubbling, if not, bring to simmering point.
  • Then, lower heat right down, and cook for 5 – 10 minutes until the fish is cooked through. This will depend on the size of your fish.
  • When done, top with chopped parsley and coriander leaves. Then take the whole dish to your table and serve up with plenty of bread and extra pickled chillies.

Notes

Total time does not include 1 hour of marinating time.

Nutrition

Serving: 4 | Calories: 241kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 24g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 54mg | Sodium: 665mg | Potassium: 875mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 1695IU | Vitamin C: 98mg | Calcium: 47mg | Iron: 1mg
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19 thoughts on “Fish Tagine with Potatoes”

  1. aziel morte

    I haven’t try this recipe before and absolutely looks delicious! I would love to try this

  2. Elizabeth O.

    This sounds amazing. It’s nice that you used homemade pickled chilis for this recipe.

  3. I have not tried this before, this recipe looks so incredible for a great dinner! thanks for sharing

  4. I have never heard a dish or recipe like this. This sounds interesting and I want to try it. It looks delicious!

  5. Thanks so much for the great idea! The tagine sounds fantastic. We will make this with Mahi Mahi which is our preferred fish. We will also use white rice. My husband loves his rice. Great meal to come for us thanks to you!

  6. Thomas Mann

    Ah, my wife and I are loving your tagine masterclass series! Remember we made a big batch of the khlie? It didn’t last long as we had some visitors not long after! So, we made another one!
    Never had a fish tagine ever, in all my time in North Africa! Time to rememdy that with this beautiful looking recipe!
    Enjoy your weekend too!

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