Out, and in, and old, and new.
So the tagine was left on a shelf in the upstairs kitchen, a little bookshelf with nothing much else on it at the moment (it had been used at some point in the downstairs kitchen, and put away on a shelf down there, but the space on that shelf needed to be used, which is why it had been brought up to the upstairs kitchen, which is mostly storage, sunlight, coffee, and cats), but then the cats during a lull between feedings got into some sort of contretemps or donnybrook that necessitated leaping onto said bookshelf and then off it, alacritously, so much so that the shelf tipped over, sending the nothing much else along with the tagine crashing to the ground, and have you seen a tagine? This was just the top, but the top is a great cone of glazed pottery, and when it hits hardwood even from just the height of a little bookshelf toppled by an enthusiastic cat, it smashes.
Which is why the cats got me a new tagine for Christmas.
I decided to break it in today with a fish dish. Breaking in a new tagine means curing it, first, so at about six this morning (after maybe eighty-some-odd words on the epic) I rinsed out the laundry sink downstairs and piled in the base and the top and waited a good long while for the water to fill up enough to cover it all (they’re tall, tagines), and let it sit for a couple-few hours. Then haul it out and dry it out and put it in a cold oven, and let it (slowly) heat up to three hundred or so Farenheit and let it (gently) roast for another couple-few hours, and then, once it’s cooled enough to touch, set it up to cook: if you don’t happen to have a dedicated heat diffuser (which, well, we don’t), turn a pie-pan over atop an eye on the stove, then set the pottery base of the tagine on that, pour in some olive oil, and set the heat low: not more than a quarter of the total heat available, and let it (slowly) heat up while you slice some red onions into thin rounds. Pile the onions into the tagine and set the top on, gently, and, well. It’ll take a good thirty to forty-five minutes at least for the works to hot up enough for the onions to start to soften, but when they do, you can add the honey and the raisins (plumped in a bit of warm water and some lemon juice from the marinade) and the ground ginger and the cinnamon stick and then let it keep on cooking for (checks clock) a couple-three hours more at least, while the fish marinates (parsley, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, ginger, cinnamon, salt, pepper, you know the drill) in the fridge, it’ll keep, you could even make a cocktail or two (a Brooklyn: rye, dry vermouth [terribly dry], a hint of maraschino, bitters) until those onions become the jammiest of jams, it’s going on four hours now, check it again in a bit—
Thus, the end of the old, the beginning of the new. And we didn’t even get to the cabbage.
