Moroccan Lamb Tagine, or How I Forgave the Weather for Being Cold and Wet

Welcome, winter.  Though you mark the end of wonderful things like tomatoes (grrrrr),  you allow me to turn on my oven for two hours and make lamb stew.  Amazing lamb stew.  And thank you, recipe-part-of-the-BBC's-website-which-I-didn't-realize-existed!  I've translated their recipe here, for your non-British enjoyment...  The recipe makes enough for 6-8 people, but did we scale it down? Nooooo.  Instead we have a meal's worth in the freezer, and leftovers for Thursday's dinner!  A word to the wise: you need a very large casserole dish for this.  Or two of them.  Trust us.

Lamb Tagine
spice mix:
1 t. cayenne
2 t. black pepper
1.5 T. paprika
1.5 T. ground ginger
1 T. turmeric
2 t. cinnamon

2 lb lamb stew cubes
2 large onions, grated (really! on a box grater, apparently) or minced
a few T. olive oil
a few T. argan oil (if you happen to have been to Morocco recently, or canola)
3 cloves garlic, crushed/minced/microplaned
2 c. tomato juice*
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (the large can)
4 oz/.67ish c. dried apricots, snipped in half (a large, sticky handful)**
2 oz/.33ish c. dried dates, snipped in half (a small, slightly-less-sticky handful)
2 oz/.33ish c. golden raisins (a small, minimally-sticky handful)
3 oz/.5ish c. almonds-- flaked, chopped or slivered (a large handful)
1 t. saffron stamens
2 c. lamb or beef stock
1 T. honey
1 small bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped (for garnish)

Stir together spice mix.  Coat the lamb cubes in half of the mix (reserve the rest), and let marinate in the fridge for 6-12 hours.

Cook lamb cubes in olive/argan oil over med-high heat, transferring to your casserole dish(es) when nicely brown on the outsides.  You will probably have to do this in batches.  Deglaze pan with a splash of tomato juice and add this to the casserole.

The oil turns yellow from the turmeric...yum.

Looks can be deceiving-- partially cooked lamb does not make good eating.  (Yet.)

Start saffron soaking in a small bowl of water.  Preheat oven to 300.

Originally...

...15 minutes later!

In a large saucepan***, saute onions and reserved spice mix over very low heat for about 10 minutes.  Onions should turn translucent but not brown.  BEWARE OF NOXIOUS ONION+CAYENNE+PEPPER+ TURMERIC GASES.  Resist the urge to take a deep breath of the fumes.  Add garlic and continue to cook over low heat and breathe sparingly.

Gas mask suggested.

After 2-3 minutes, add remaining tomato juice and/or stock to deglaze this pan, then add this awesomely-colored concoction to the casserole dish.

This was 3/4 of the stew-- smaller casserole dish, also full, not pictured.

Carefully stir in fruit, almonds, honey, diced tomatoes, saffron+its water, cover, and bake for 2 hours.  To check for doneness, remove from oven and fish out a lamb cube; if it is easy to stab with a fork and has the most amazing texture, it's done.  Otherwise, cook for an additional half hour.

Serve over couscous (Bring 1.5 c. water to a boil, add .5 T. butter, remove from heat, add 1 c. couscous, cover pan, and leave undisturbed for 5 minutes.  Uncover and fluff with a fork.  Feeds 3-4, scale up as needed.) with cilantro garnish.  Enjoy!


*Did you know that it is humanly impossible to buy tomato juice in this quantity??  There's 3.5 cups of tomato juice in our freezer now.
**Use a scale if you have one; it's especially nice if you can re-zero it and then weigh all of these things together.  But you don't have to be exact-- tagine will not be ruined by a few extra apricots.
***Ideally, you'd have a really nice enameled casserole dish (maybe in a color that matches your stand mixer) that can also go on the stovetop, and you would just do all of this in that (having set the lamb aside in a bowl, to add back in when you add everything else).

We didn't have any cilantro, but we forced it down anyways.

P.S. The dates will turn golden, look like olives, and taste like slow-cooked lamb....!!!  Prepare yourself for this culinary alchemy.
P.P.S. Turmeric/saffron stain things yellow.  Such as, countertops (so I hear) and tupperware containers (so I see).

P.P.P.S. I swear I was not drinking when I
took this picture but I thought it was level!

Goulash

It was chilly (only 75!) and overcast today, which made it perfect for stew. Goulash is Hungarian I think, and is essentially oniony, paprikay beef stew. Yum! It also happens to be very very easy to make, as all good stew should be. This is my parents' recipe (if you can even call it that), and they always make it in the pressure cooker, allowing one to go from raw to stew in about 30 minutes. I have no pressure cooker and didn't think far enough ahead to put this in the CrockPot (though you easily could), so I just made it in a pot on the stove, the old-fashioned way. The amount of this recipe is enough for 2 decently-sized portions-- two dinners or a dinner and leftovers-for-lunch!

Start with 1/2 lb stew beef (or lamb I suppose). I cut mine into smaller chunks to encourage it to cook more quickly. In two batches, brown it in a combination of canola and olive oils. You only want the meat to brown, don't worry if it's still raw in the middle. Remove from the pan and add two large handfuls of sliced onions. Brown those also, adding more oil as necessary. Deglaze the pan with a splash of red wine, then add the meat back in, along with a beef boullion cube, 3-4 T. of [mild Hungarian] paprika, 1/2 t. cayenne or hot paprika and enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook until the meat is tender-- about 20 minutes in a pressure cooker, 90 minutes on the stovetop, or 4+ hours in a CrockPot. Keep an eye on it and add more water as needed. When the meat was almost tender I added about an extra half cup of water and when that reached a rolling boil, three handfuls of uncooked egg noodles. 9 minutes later I had a one-pot goulash+noodles dinner! Serve with plenty of freshly cracked black pepper. On a whim I added some fresh basil for garnish and discovered that it complements the paprika and beef flavors excellently! I plan on throwing a few more leaves in with my leftovers.

Stew and Soda Bread

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day! I made the soda bread from an Epicurious recipe (where else?), link at the bottom. And stew is Irish, right? I made this up as I went along, threw it all in the Crock Pot, and it was delicious! There's nothing like a wonderful meal that cooked all day while you're in class. Perhaps we'll move on soon from winter comfort foods to spring foods, but for now I'm still enjoying casseroles and stew! (Besides, who wants to eat stew in August when it's 95? Not I.)

Irish-inspired Beef Stew
1/2 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
dash of olive oil

2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 large button mushrooms, chopped
3 cloves garlic, whole or halved
2 dashes of olive oil (and/or bacon grease and/or butter)

4 red-skinned potatoes, chopped
2 or 3 bay leaves
a few heavy pinches of dried thyme
black pepper to taste
enough water to barely cover

2 forkfuls AP flour

Brown the first two ingredients together, add to Crock Pot. Brown next group of ingredients, add to Crock Pot. Add everything else except the flour, and cook until potatoes are soft-- a few hours. A few minutes before serving, ladle out some of the liquid into a cup, mix in the flour until no lumps remain, and stir the flour mixture back into the stew. Allow to cook for 5 minutes more, or until stew has thickened. Serve with Brown Butter Soda Bread and a good stout (more details on the beer end soon, I think).

(Blogger's being weird with the pictures today, I don't know why this one is rotated...)