Spring Lamb Tagine with Sweetened Onions
I love the SBS show Food Safari show hosted by Maeve O'Meara. The Moroccan themed show open my mind and taste buds to the delights of Moroccan cooking. The spices. The earthy nourishing meals. The preserved lemon. The wonderful music. The incredible theatrical tea pouring out of the decorative pots. The bold magenta and turquoise colours with distinctive gold patterning. There is so much beauty in the world of Morrocco. The Moroccan climate and red sandy landscape reminds me of childhood adventures out into Outback South Australia. As well as my time living and teaching in Outback South Australia. The beauty of arid landscapes is not lost of me. As it makes me be oh so much more grateful for the winter rains and pastures we currently a blessed with on our farm.
I will be honest, the beautiful cover of the "Morocco" Cook Book by Jeff Koehler drew me to this recipe book. I thought it would look beautiful on my recipe book stack.
I’m so glad that I did pick up this lovely Morocco Recipe Book. As it has so many wonderful lamb recipes. Lamb is synonymous with Morocco. So I’m super excited about trying more lamb recipes in up coming Spring Lamb season.
Spring Lamb Tagine with Sweetened Onions is the DAY 4 recipe in our LAMB WEEK SERIES as a part of BUY SA WEEK.
A tagine is an iconic Moroccan dish and cooking vessel. There are just some foods that transport you to the country of their origin. The tagine is definitely one of these.
I don’t have a tagine cooking vessel. However a dutch oven is a very effective slow cooking vessel that holds the steam into the cooking tagine.
Just be sure to be very kind to your dutch oven. Follow the instructions of only cooking the dutch oven on a medium heat. As I have sadly recently RIP my first ever french dutch oven. My rushing the stove top cooking part of a recipe thinking “it won’t matter if I turn it up a bit higher for a couple of minutes”. I learnt the hard way, that yest it does matter! Medium heat only for enamel coated cast iron, is a lesson I won’t ever forget.
Lamb Tagine with Sweetened Onions
I love the SBS show Food Safari show hosted by Maeve O'Meara. The moroccan themed show open my mind and taste buds to the delights of moroccan cooking. I will be honest, the beautiful cover of the "Morocco" Cook Book by Jeff Koehler drew me to this recipe book. I thought it would look beautiful on my recipe book stack. This Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Sweet Onions recipe has blown my mind. We loved the sweet onoins. Miss Farmer noticed the suprising delight of the cinnamon. And we all loved the lamb.
Ingredients
- 3 large red onions
- 2 tablespoons coriander, chopped
- 2 tablespoons flat leaf parsely, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 3/4 teaspoon tumeric
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- salt and ground pepper
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 500g Peppermint Ridge Farm Co Spring Lamb Diced Shoulder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup cous cous
- 1/4 cup sultanas, chopped
- Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees
- Chop onions in half and finely slice red onions. Place in bottom of dutch oven. Add garlic, coriander, parsley, tumeric, ginger, pepper and salt, olive oil, sugar and cinnamon. Mix together. Place diced lamb on top.
- Cook for 11/2 hours. Remove dutch oven from oven. Rest for 15 minutes while cooking cous cous.
- Carefully spoon out casserole, keeping onions on the bottom with lamb on top onto the plate. Serve with cous cous. Top with finely chopped parsley.
- Place all ingredients in a bowl. Pour hot water over top for 1inch over the top of the cous cous. Cover and leave until water absorbed. Fluff with a fork
Jeff’s cook book is filled with so many lamb recipes that are so exciting to read, with me knowing that we have Spring Lamb coming in the coming months of Spring.
Jeff’s travels and learning about Moroccan food is beautifully told in the introduction. I love the saying from Fabrizio summing up the principals of Moroccan cooking “time to prepare, time to cook time for the presentation”. I have learnt a lot more about the diversity within the Moroccan cuisines. And I am excited about cooking and learning more about the cuisines of such diverse cultural heritage from a country tucked between the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.
We had an interesting conversation about cinnamon at dinner. About spices and herbs and about where cinnamon comes from. Miss Farmer asked if we have cinnamon trees growing near us? What a great question.
From a bit of research. Daleys Fruit website suggests the Cinnamon Tree is best suited to growing in Tropical and Subtropical climates, preferring temperatures above 5 degrees. So it appears that Cinnamon Trees could be grown in more tropical and subtropical climates in Australia. We have had many harsh frosts over the past few weeks. However with the frosts that we receive here in the Adelaide Hills, I don’t expect a Cinnamon Tree would thrive her in the Adelaide Hills. Unless you have the access to a glass house or environment where the conditions that the Cinnamon Tree thrives in can be maintained. Interestingly the Cinnamon Tree needs to grow for more than 2 years before the Cinnamon Tree is ready for harvesting the bark for use as a spice in cooking.
Keep your eye out for a daily Spring Lamb recipe for 5 days in a row this week. Saturday you can expect your LAMB WEEK free printable recipebook, of these lovely 5 Spring Lamb Recipes on Saturday at 5pm.
Love to you all, Misses Farmer X
