This is an intermediate level recipe. I don't recommend it as the first tagine recipe to try. I used a clay tagine I bought at Sur La Table for $20-$25, it's made in Portugal and must be soaked in water before initial use. It can be used on the stove top and the oven.
This is an earthy, spicy lamb tagine recipe which I would describe as more Annaba in (eastern Algeria, near Tunisia) in flavor profile. Quite a contrast from the milder, sweet lamb tagine I gave to the LA Times for the "Tagine Dreams" article about me. That recipe is more in the style of Tlemcen (western Algeria, near Morocco).
Those of you who've cooked my other tagine recipes will immediately notice that this one has a stronger aroma of spices than most of my dishes. The flavor and aroma will mellow considerably with long slow cooking.
Use lamb shanks for a more "glamorous" presentation. Beef short ribs also work well with this recipe.
The first photo is of the spices I used before I ground them in my spice grinder. The spices are nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric (this has to be grated on a rasp), allspice, peppercorns, fennel, cumin, coriander, saffron, caraway, zaatar (wild thyme) and nigella seeds. You can use other versions of my ras el hanout if you have that in your pantry.
The second photo is of the ingredients for my dersa spice paste. 1 teaspoon of ras el hanout, grated turmeric, Aleppo pepper, coarse salt, 2 cloves of garlic finely minced, a small finely minced shallot and a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
The third photo is of the dersa ingredients combined. Spread the dersa paste so that it evenly coats the bottom of the tagine. Lay 8 pieces of lamb neck on top of the dersa, place tagine on stove and turn heat onto low. Slowly raise the heat to medium low. Turn the lamb pieces after 5-7 minutes, the color will be yellow from the turmeric and saffron as shown in the photo.
Add one cup of tomato puree and enough water to reach about 3/4 up the sides of the tagine vessel. Add 5-6 sprigs of cilantro and a whole hot pepper. I used a jalapeno because that's what's easily available in Los Angeles. Although a lot of Algerian tagines and stews have some form of tomato in them, most do not really taste of tomato sauce. Tomatoes are used like a spice in Algerian cooking- they add sweetness, color, body and acidity to dishes. After this lamb tagine is done cooking the sauce is more like a rich glaze than a tomato sauce. Charles Perry commented after tasting my sweet lamb tagine that he noticed right away how the tomato sauce I added to the dish was not obvious, "but there is still something there" that's totally different from Italian-American red sauce.
Cover and let simmer on very low heat, after one hour turn the lamb pieces and add 1 cup of parboiled white beans. I used Rancho Gordo cellini runner beans which add body to the sauce and a touch of sweetness. Remember that in Algerian cooking almost all ingredients are considered "spices" in the sense that they add a particular flavor to a dish.
This is what the tagine looks like about 1 hour into cooking.
This is what the tagine looks like 2 1/2 hours into cooking. You can see that the sauce has reduce quite a bit. Depending on how much water the beans soak up and how quickly the cooking liquid reduces you may have to add more water during the last 45 minutes of cooking. If there is too much water when the meat is cooked tender, remove the lamb and turn up the heat and let the sauce reduce to glaze.
Theoretically the conical tagine lid is supposed to function as a kind of self-basting mechanism for slow cooked braises. But the fact of the matter is that tagine vessels can vary quite a bit in the amount of moisture they retain. The good news though is that you only need to know the idiosyncrasies of your particular cooking vessel.
After an additional hour of cooking the sauce is reduced to a glaze. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro before serving. Serve with kesra or khobz.
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