Tanjia

An urn of clay left in the ashes of a hammam furnace: Marrakech's overnight stew.

Also called tangia · From Marrakech and the Maghreb

A tall unglazed tanjia urn with preserved lemon, cumin, and a knotted paper lid.

The journey

A tanjia is a tall clay urn, not a cone. Butchers in Marrakech still pack it with meat, preserved lemon, cumin, and smen, then walk it to the furnace of a neighborhood hammam. By evening the connective tissue has given up.

The pot is named for the city as much as the stew. A tagine is lunch. A tanjia is what you fetch after work.

The Catalan Atlas of the Maghreb — the routes that still end in a Marrakech urn of lamb. — Abraham Cresques, Atlas català (1375), Bibliothèque nationale de France · Public domain. Source

In the kitchen

Pack the urn tight. Almost no water. Seal the mouth with paper and string. Cook low for hours in an oven if you have no hammam coals.

The Moroccan volume's slow lamb dishes are cousins. A Dutch oven can copy the time. The clay urn is the city's own hearth.

Used in these ComidaTime kitchens

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