What are you to do when a difference in terminology - or an unscrupulous butcher? - means you end up with twice as much lamb as you needed? Well, you could do a lot worse than moving a Moroccan tagine forward in the rotation and discovering a whole new world of taste.
That's a lot of ingredients, but we didn't actually have to buy much that we didn't have already on hand - working your way through a cookbook tends to really improve your spice cupboard. Though I'll admit we did have to go find some saffron, the king of spices. Which turned out to be on sale for 33% off; strangely disappointing, if easier on the wallet.
Once the lamb was diced up into stew sized portions, it was in to the pan with some oil to get a bit of colour on it.
That done, it was everything else's turn! Tagine might be a fancy name, but it's a stew at heart, and stews are not renowned for complexity of method. Ingredients, pot, cook.
At the risk of losing style points, let me list what we threw in the pot: red onion, garlic, ginger, saffron, coriander, cumin, paprika, fennel, cinnamon, bay, tomato, sweet potato, raisins, stock, and of course the lamb itself. Complexity of method, no - complexity of flavour, oh my yes.
Throw on some parsley to give it that touch of freshness, and dive into a whole new world of flavour. I can't say I've much to compare it to, but if ours was anything close to an authentic tagine, Morocco just climbed a few spots on the travel list.
That's a lot of ingredients, but we didn't actually have to buy much that we didn't have already on hand - working your way through a cookbook tends to really improve your spice cupboard. Though I'll admit we did have to go find some saffron, the king of spices. Which turned out to be on sale for 33% off; strangely disappointing, if easier on the wallet.
Once the lamb was diced up into stew sized portions, it was in to the pan with some oil to get a bit of colour on it.
That done, it was everything else's turn! Tagine might be a fancy name, but it's a stew at heart, and stews are not renowned for complexity of method. Ingredients, pot, cook.
At the risk of losing style points, let me list what we threw in the pot: red onion, garlic, ginger, saffron, coriander, cumin, paprika, fennel, cinnamon, bay, tomato, sweet potato, raisins, stock, and of course the lamb itself. Complexity of method, no - complexity of flavour, oh my yes.
Throw on some parsley to give it that touch of freshness, and dive into a whole new world of flavour. I can't say I've much to compare it to, but if ours was anything close to an authentic tagine, Morocco just climbed a few spots on the travel list.
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