Review: Emile Henry 3.7qt Tagine

Several years ago, I fell in love with the food and cooking of Morocco.  Of course true to everything I do, I couldn’t just “cook” Moroccan food, I had to become one with Moroccan food.  This of course meant that I HAD to have a tagine or tajine as it’s called, which is not only the special heavy clay pot but also the name of the dish itself.  At $165 this was not a purchase made lightly, but Katt noticing me salivating over this pot online and subsequently buying it for me made the decision much easier!  Hit the link to find out what I think of the Emile Henry Tagine.

First you may be wondering why the Emile Henry tagine, well first off it was very important to me that I get a modern tagine that is as close to a traditional tagine as possible.  A lot of the tagines on the market were either metal or enamel coated cast iron, to me this does not allow you to create the traditional Moroccan dish as faithfully, as the cooking pot would retain too much heat.  The Emile Henry vessel is made from their Flame® ceramic line which is great since it’s light, will work on any cook-top (a disk embedded in the ceramic allows it to work on induction cook-tops), is oven and microwave safe, and can even be used directly on a fire.  Almost as important to me is that the Emile Henry tagine is just plain beautiful, it looks great on your table and makes a great serving vessel in addition to a cooking pot.  Also available in a smaller 2.6qt version I found that this was a little too small to properly include the amounts and sheer number of ingredients needed to create a wonderful tagine (at least the ones I like to make).  Also just as important to a tagine is the lid and the Emile Henry has a perfect lid, nice tall cone with a sealed top.  The special lid allows steam to form and drop back onto the cooking meat, this helps keep the protein you are cooking extremely moist which is important for this style of meal.  The shape of the lid also means that you can remove it easily while cooking since it stays relatively cool compared to the bottom of the pot.  Avoid any tagine that does not have a sealed lid, I have seen several that have holes in the very top of the cone and this defeats the purpose. 

The first thing you will notice about the tagine when you get it home is that in addition to its good looks, it feels good.  It is heavy, but not so heavy that you can not easily move it from the stove to the table.  The first thing you are going to want to do, just like any traditional clay pot, is to season it.  This is accomplished by adding milk to the pot until you have a depth of about an inch.  Simmer the milk for about 5 minutes, let it completely cool and than clean your pot.  Important to note, since this is a glazed pot, is that very small cracks will appear due the the expansion and contraction of the material when it heat cycles, this is perfectly normal and should not be cause for alarm.  However, it is never a good idea to heat a clay vessel that is empty, without something in the pot to act as a heat sink the pot has the potential of breaking.  According to the manufacturer this material is dishwasher safe, but like all of the cookware I love, I prefer not to subject it to the rigors of the machine wash but instead wash by hand, the decision is of course up to you.  After seasoning my pot I started by preparing a traditional lamb tagine, this included just about every spice I had, preserved lemons, apricots, olives, carrots, onions and beef stock.  Served over cous-cous the results were amazing, wonderfully tender lamb with just the right balance of sweet and savory!  The great thing about a tagine is that it allows you, just like a stew, to experiment with flavors by substituting various produce, protein and spices.  True to most Moroccan style tagines I try to balance sweetness (apricots, raisins, dates, honey) with sour (preserved lemons, lemon juice) and tie them together with a healthy spice blend.  Since this is a slow cooking method you can use cheaper cuts of meat, since after cooking for hours you can easily break down even the toughest cuts until they are falling apart.  I have since created tagines featuring beef, chicken, lamb, lamb again (it’s sooo good), and even a special vegetarian tagine for my cousin using chick peas and prickly pear cactus, the results were the same for all of them, absolutely delicious, and I have received many complements on the tagines (dish), and the tagine (pot).

If you have not figured it out yet I can completely recommend the Emile Henry tagine, it’s a durable product that will last you a lifetime if cared for and will allow you to create the wonderful dishes of northern Africa and look good doing it!

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