Lamb and Fig Tagine Cooked in a Clay Tagine- It's Fig Season!

This is another intermediate tagine recipe, which means I am assuming basic knowledge of clay tagine cooking for the cook who wants to try this. You can make this tagine, as with all my clay tagine recipes, in a casserole or dutch oven. Many of my recipes can also be prepared in a pressure cooker or slow cooker. Contemporary North Africans cooks mix old and new cooking techniques.

I used thick lamb loin chops- but duck, chicken, veal or rabbit are also delicious with figs. However, the cooking methods must be modified a bit for different proteins.

I sprinkled the lamb chops with spices and a 1/4 teaspoons of salt, placed them in my clay tagine with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and turned the heat on a low setting to seize the meat, not brown it. I added one cup of water and let it braise for 2 hours, adding more water as needed. Remember the rate of moisture loss can vary considerably depending on the type of clay tagine you use.

When the meat is almost done cooking let the braising liquid reduce to a glaze of olive oil and rendered lamb fat. At this point the lamb chops will start browning. Remove the lamb pieces from the tagine when they are lightly browned on both sides.

Cut the figs in half or quarters depending on how large they are. Add them to the tagine and cook until they start to caramelize. If you're not experienced with cooking in clay and controlling heat, I suggest browning the figs in a non stick skillet. The sugars from the figs will caramelize and it's just a short step to burning if the tagine vessel gets too hot. Remember clay retains heat longer than say a non-stick skillet, once a clay vessel is hot moving it off the fire won't work as a quick way to reduce temperatures to impede burning.

This is the spice blend I used for this recipe. Coriander, nigella seeds, white pepper corns, black pepper corns, green pepper corns, red pepper corns and cardamom. I use an electric spice grinder for most of my spices. For very hard spices such as dried whole turmerice, mace or nutmeg I use a rasp or the fine side of a box grater.

Comments

[Naouel]

Délicieux, je rajouterai juste de la cannelle à mon gôût indispensable.
Bonne continuation.

[oumsohayb]

machaallah ça à l'air très bon ce tajine de figues vous avez pas la version française de votre blog ?

[Farid]

Hi Shaun

Thanks for the compliments.

The duck will render more fat than the lamb during cooking, you don't have to do anything separately. During the latter stages of cooking let the duck cook in this fat(do not be afraid of duck fat!) creating a bit of a confit effect. Let the duck brown and crisp in it's own fat. Drain off the fat for service. The results will be moist and succulent with a crisp skin.

If you like use the reserved duck fat for sauteeing potatoes or other vegetables.

[Shaun]

Farid - Thank you for this recipe. I love figs and am often wanting to use them in many applications. If one were to use duck legs instead of the specified lamb in this recipe, would one need be concerned with rendering any fat before the browning stage?

I have just found your blog today and am already enthralled by it. I will take a few days slowly going through your archive.

[kitchenette]

This recipe includes two of my favourite ingredients! I would love it!