Moroccan Lamb Tagine
by Dawn T in Rouxbe RecipesLuxurious Middle Eastern spices and slow cooking make this Moroccan Lamb Tagine a tender and exotic stew.
| Comments: 31 | Views: 22993 | Success: 94% |
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Luxurious Middle Eastern spices and slow cooking make this Moroccan Lamb Tagine a tender and exotic stew.
| Comments: 31 | Views: 22993 | Success: 94% |
You forgot to add the ingredients for the ras el hanout. And if this is "lamb tagine", who forgot about the tagine pot?!!!I was looking forward to learning about how to use a tagine. Not having the tagine slightly diminished my learning experience. Otherwise, the recipe seemed pretty tasty.
Sorry for any confusion. The ras el hanout is actually a separate recipe. It's sort of like garam masala, meaning a mixture of spices that is sold as such. But we also added the separate recipe just in case you wanted to make your own. Which is very easy and will keep for a very long time.
Here is the link for the ras el hanout http://eww.rouxbe.com/recipes/53/
As for the tagine...there are two meanings for the word, one is the "pot" and one is the "dish" that is cooked in it. We chose not to use a tagine simply because most people would not have one.
We will do a video on it one day though, promise!
I can see what you are saying about missing out on the tagine. It does make the whole experience just a bit more authentic.
Thanks for your feedback! Glad you liked the recipe though.
I have made this tangine at least 4 times. The first time, I made the ras el hanout and still have lots left which simplifies the recipe now. I love the blend of spices. Instead of shoulder, I have always used boneless leg of lamb. (Just a personal preference). The meat is very moist and delicious. Tonight I served it with rice instead of couscous and the best part is that I have 4 yummy meals for 2 tucked away in the freezer. I have never used a tangine pot but it is hard to believe it could taste any better than it does.
This was the recipe that first led me to Rouxbe. I needed a 'specialty' dish to cook and as I am not a very confident cook, I decided that I had to have something that not many people are familiar with-Morrocan cooking! This dish is very versatile and as I cook onboard a yacht, I don't always have all the 'correct' ingredients. Thanks
Lower and slower is better, you are correct. Good for you, it seems like you have been doing your homework :-)
To be honest this is an older recipe and we used to cook at higher temperatures, until our experiments proved that slower and lower is better with moist heat cooking...if time permits.
Really you can make this at either/any temperature - but again for the ultimate results - lower and slower is best! I have attached a Drill-down to step 2 of this recipe to help clarify this point.
Hi Dawn,
Thanks for the reply. We only have one oven, so after cooking the meat in the oven at low temp for an hour, I put the dutch oven on the stove top over a very low flame while roasting the squash at a higher temperature. My first attempt at lamb, and it was good and tender! Thanks for the recipe.
Not only the best stew I have made, but also the best lamb-dish! I used Oregon grass-fed lamb and even through the bones into the stock-pot for some extra flavor-delicious and so tender and moist. I only used 2 orange slices and regret it now, I was afraid it would be over-powering, but not at all. Served it with sour dough bread, and the roasted squash. A hit!
My son shows up in town and and the two of us need to treat the chef of the house. Turn to Rouxbe of course! Now we made a few mistakes. We made our own Moroccan spice mix from Google. (that was not a mistake, it worked well) Never marinated the lamb, as I looked the video late (5:30 pm) and saw that we had to let it sit for 2hrs at least. So skip that and onward. All is going well until we realize that we have spaghetti squash instead of butternut. Leave the sous chef to keep everything going and run to the store. Back in the kitchen, squash is now in the oven. Sorry, but 15 min does not cook that squash, so keep it in there for another 20. Finally fold squash into the stew and oh my....what a thing of beauty, so tender. Can you imagine if I had it sit for 2 hrs? The flavour was still lingering a half hour later. The couscous was a great side that picked up the sauce. Thought we messed it up, only to have it be one of the best Rouxbe nights on record.
Ive just joined and have to say that your videos are detailed and well presented . BUT I would like to take issue on the one thing that is lacking - and that is the list and quantity of ingredients . I do understand that you have a separate text on this , but I find this very inconvenient . Cannot the text be included in the video like VIDEOJUG do ? It makes life ever so simple .
Regards ........Bob Gibbs
Hi Bob,
Glad you are enjoying the videos. You raise an great point - one that we raised and tested in the early days of Rouxbe's development. We actually used to have text overlays for the ingredients, but the overwhelming response from users was to remove the text as it interfered with the video viewing experience.
Most users watch the videos, then print off the recipes to use when playing back the recipes as they follow along. So based on user feedback, we won't be moving back to the VideoJug-style of video production. Sorry. It's a challenge to provide the best user-experience for all users, but we do our best to accommodate as many as we can.
Thanks again for sharing your feedback. Sorry we can't provide this service for you.
Cheers, Joe!
It was so tasty that my husband screamed, 'It's a keeper'! And he doesn't say it that often. No need to go to a moroccan restaurant anymore. For some reason my tagine was a little dry at the end even though I followed the recipe exactly. I did add a little water to moisten it and it was fine after that. Should I add little more broth that the recommended portion?
It has inspired me to make time to cook at home again. I have made several recipes and they all turned out perfect. What a great website!
So glad that you and your husband liked the dish Minerva. As for it being a bit dry at the end, you were correct to add a bit more liquid. The thing with cooking is that most recipes are merely guidelines and not exact maps. This is because things are not always the same. For instance, perhaps your oven temperature was higher or lower, or perhaps you had more or less meat, or the meat itself could have been leaner etc, etc.
For the best results, one has to know what to look for and how to adjust things accordingly. For much more in-depth information on what to look for when stewing, braising or using combination cooking in general, we highly recommend that you watch the lessons in the "Moist Heat Cooking" section in the Cooking School. In particular, the "Combination Cooking Lessons" and the "Stewing Lesson". Hope this helps. Cheers!
I made this for a Sunday supper and even those that declared that they don't like lamb loved it. It took a while for me to get rid of the silver skin on the lamb - but I guess practice makes perfect! This is a delicious recipe and I served six adults with it - and there wasn't a scrap of leftovers!
While searing the lamb I somehow managed to burn the sucs while not creating the perfect seared lamb (some pieces were perfect but others did not caremelise at all. . I had the gas on the highest it would go but the sizzle just wasn't quite high enough per the lesson. . Do you think this is due to an insufficient frying pan or sOmething else I did wrong?
Keep on practicing. Obtaining good color takes practice and patience.
When searing, sauteing and pan frying even though a particular heat level is recommended, cooking is all about adjusting the heat up or down as you cook. It sounds like the heat was far too high. Let your pan heat up properly and don't disturb the meat until the first side has obtained good color.
If, during the searing process, you notice that the sucs are starting to become too dark, you can mop them up with the meat or you can deglaze to save them. This process will take more time (as you will have to heat the pan up again), but it is better than burning them and incorporating a bitter flavor in your dish.
Also make sure the pan isn't too dry - there should be a thin layer of fat during cooking and in between batches. This will also help to keep everything lubricated. If the meat did not obtain any color, it might have been too wet or you may have overcrowded the pan and some pieces will sweat, rather than sear. Lots of things to keep in mind when practicing this cooking method. Hope this helps! Cheers!
I used a Le Creuset Dutch oven and had made boeuf bourguignon many times with good searing results. The searing of this lamb was a challenge by comparison. The diffrence with French stew is that the meat is dried to accomplish good searing. The lamb meat for this dish was covered in wet marinated onions and it came between the meat and the heat.
I shook as much of the onions from the lamb and seared it at medium high as recommend. The meat still had problems searing and the sucs kept burning on the bottom of the pot. So I deglazed my Dutch Oven and set it aside and brought out my carbon steel wok (for a natural teflon surface) in hopes of searing that meat better. I don't think I was totally satisfied from that experience, but it worked a little better than the Dutch oven somehow.
Kimberly's thoughts about searing was new information I had not consider, and that was lowering the temperature even further than the medium high heat the recipe had suggested. I guess I was worried the meat would not sear at a lower temperature.
Thanks Kimberly for broadening my knowledge and presenting other posibilities! I am exicited about finishing out this dish and tasting this recipe.
I bought leg of lamb on sale and removed the bone myself. Would of used lamb shoulder, but the sale was too good to pass. I felt confident when someone earlier said that they used leg as preference and it turned out "moist and delicious."
Even though the searing part was a little bit of challenge, only some of the meat came out dry. The flavor was delicious and I had six people including myself enjoy the stew over basmati rice. As suggested, I added a Middle Eastern style salad and that made my meal complete.
Everyone raved about the flavor! I'm looking forward to making this recipe again and getting another opportunity to practice searing the lamb to see if I can make it even better.
Also, next time I will read through all the feed back on comments so I might pick up some good tips and helpful information before attempting the next recipe. This was a great experience! Thank you so much!!!
Great job on the dish. Glad you liked it and will make some tweaks next time. Meats that have been marinated can be more challenging to sear/brown so it is important to adjust the heat level to protect the sucs. With this marinated meat, you might not be able to get as much browning as you normally would with drier pieces of meat, but a little bit will help with flavor. Cheers!
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