Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Arabian nights


Cooked a beautiful lamb Tagine last night. It was a little hot, WH had to have several sips of water with it but I loved it. This morning the house smells fragrant with the Ras el Hanout spice.

1lb diced stewing lamb
2 onions chopped
4oz dried apricots halved then soaked in hot water for a few minutes
3 teaspoons Ras el Hanout spice
1/2 pint lamb stock
4 tablespoons chopped coriander
slug of cooking oil
12 ozs diced sweet potato or butternut squash
water

Heat the oil in a pan. Sweat onions until soft but not coloured, add the lamb and the spice. Stir and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the halved dried apricots and their soaking liquid, the stock and enough water to cover. Simmer for 2 hours. Add the vegetables and coriander and simmer until the veg is tender and the sauce reduced and thick. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with couscous laced with plenty of chopped herbs or mashed potatoes and a green vegetable.

Note that Ras el Hanout varies in it's heat. 3 teaspoons makes a fairly heated dish but use only 2 teaspoons if you want it milder.
Until you are sure how you like it, go easy on the spice. It can blow your head off!



Photo courtesy of world wide gourmet.

Just a little late addition here, Ras el Hanout a Morrocan spice is available from here of all places....amazon.com.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another good recipe from the sound of it. This one isn't going to happen soon at this house, first I have no idea where to get Ras el Hanout spice and secondly, lamb is about $40.00 a pound right now. In the fall we get whole lamb imported from New Zealand which goes on sale for about 1/2 price and I always buy some.

Unknown said...

You could use beef! The spice however is more tricky, I have however put a link to Amazon which apparently sells it!
I'll get you eating middle eastern yet!!
xx

Unknown said...

Will see you there Angel.
xx

Anonymous said...

I have eaten a lot of Egyptian fish dishes, one in particular had every kind of fish imaginable with cheese on top and you put it in the oven to melt the cheese and then made slits in it and put in scotch whiskey.

There were many spices, can't remember which, and I lost the darn recipe. It was sooooo good.

You won't have a problem getting me eating this stuff, had a lot when I worked with 14 different nationalities, we each brought a different dish for lunch on Fridays.

Unknown said...

Sounds lovely Terry! Interesting to say the least!