I've been hankering for another tagine, so today's dinner is Beef Tagine with peppers and preserved lemon.
I had bell peppers and some preserved lemon left from when I'd made tuna tagine back in January (yes, it's still good, I kept it in the fridge AND it's preserved in salt) and a lovely beef shank. And a can of artichokes, which may or may not come into play.
I cannot leave a recipe alone, even when I'm not sure what I'm doing, and I have no Moroccan cookbook (yet). I found several interesting recipes for reference online. Because I didn't put beef in the search line at first, many were for luscious-sounding vegetarian tagines. I may try one of those soon. But, beef shank needs using.
I read a dozen; I'll link these two because I referred to them the most:
and
My alterations
I mixed spices from different recipes (knowing that I was risking the end flavor) because I got wrapped around the axle about Must Use All The Spice. The biggest hurdle was that I didn't have any Ras el hanout, a mixture of 20 to 30 spices that some of the recipes viewed as essential for making meat tagines. Apparently, every version of Ras el hanout is different, containing varying amounts of allspice, black or white pepper, cinnamon, clove, coriander, cumin, ginger, and occasionally cayenne, lavender, paprika, tumeric, and ... oh, just go look at this recipe, it's amazing (rose petals!): Ras el Hanout at An Edible Mosaic
I was in a hurry and it's April -- no roses* -- so I took Liberties and used shortcuts other folks had taken. We'll see how it turns out. (results below)
There isn't a lot of water in this;** tagines are supposed to be slow-cooked in the oven with very little water in a conical pot called, oddly enough, a tagine. I have waaaay too many cooking implements in my kitchen, but I don't have one of those. I used a dutch oven last time but I wasn't going to be home when it needed to go into the oven, so crockpot it was.
I listed the things I'd do differently next time below, after the dinner report.
Dry spice mix:
- 2 tsp. garam marsala (the jar I have is a mix of cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and cardamon)
- 1 Tbsp (sweet) paprika
- 1/4 tsp tumeric
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground long pepper (because I had it and wanted to try it, regular black pepper would do)
1 pound reconstituted garbanzo beans (1/2 pound dry soaked overnight; or 16 oz can)
3 sweet bell peppers coarsely chopped (two green, one red)
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (14 oz)
4 cloves garlic
1/2 preserved lemon, rinsed and chopped
1/2 tsp paste from preserved lemon jar and an cup of water
2 pounds beef (or less; the bone in the shank I used was much larger than I expected. Oops.)
Reserve 3/4 of the dry spice mix, half the garlic and half the tomatoes.
Put the vegetables and beans, lemon, and remaining tomatoes into the crockpot and toss with remainder of dry spices and half the garlic. Add lemon water.
Spread the reserved dry spice mix on both sides of the meat (or toss, if you've chopped it up). Nestle meat on top of veggies and spread reserved garlic and tomatoes on top. Set crockpot for eight hours. Don't lift the lid to check it! (Always the hardest part about cooking with a crockpot)
Dinner report
** Well, that made a nice SOUP. Canned tomatoes and probably the bell peppers and the meat all juiced, filling the crockpot with liquid and diluting the flavor. To think I'd added the water so it wouldn't burn! Ha! It was a decent soup -- he loved it -- but I'm ruling out the crockpot for future tagine use, at least with watery veggies and meat.
It could have used more salt. I was relying on the lemon brine, but it wasn't enough.
It could have used more salt. I was relying on the lemon brine, but it wasn't enough.
After we ate I reduced the remaining broth and visible tomatoes by half to 2/3 (i.e., I boiled the water out of it), until it was thick but not quite syrup. THAT had the intensity of flavor I was after, notes of cinnamon and cardamon and cumin all tempting my tongue. How I could taste that over the paprika I don't know, but I actually didn't NOTICE the paprika. It was pretty damn good. The meld wasn't quite what I was hoping for -- certainly nothing close to Dar Essalam's fantastic oxtail-- but I didn't expect that perfection out of my kitchen, especially given the tossed-together nature of the meal.
I poured the reduction over the leftovers, mixed it well and threw it in the fridge, hoping it will be awesomely melded tomorrow. *edited to add: OH YEAH that was what it needed, and sitting overnight merged the flavors nicely. The lemon pieces were nice bright flavor bursts in the midst of a very savory spice blend. I could do this again.
Notes for next time
- Remember I blogged about this and look up the old recipe (I did not remember the tuna tagine post until I went to write this up. Doy. Remember the subtitle of this blog? Yeah, that.)
- Buy some Ras el hanout. Experiment with various spice melds. Worry less about using the entire spice cabinet.
- Use the dutch oven without a lid (or with the lid ajar) and bake.
- The preserved lemon kind of got lost, possibly because of the tomatoes, possibly because I put it in too soon, possibly because the spice mix was diluted. Look closer at the spices and ingredients of the recipes that use preserved lemon.
- Don't use the brine, just add 1/2 tsp of salt to the recipe.
- Don't use the brine, just add 1/2 tsp of salt to the recipe.
- After eight hours in the crockpot, the peppers were seriously overcooked and the garbanzo beans were done but not can-tender. I liked the texture of both (I prefer my peppers either raw or cooked to death), but others might find one or the other unpalatable. If I cook this in the oven using dried garbanzos, they would need to be cooked to at least the halfway point first.
* I passed blooming roses in a neighbor's yard on a short walk today. Suppose they'd notice a few missing petals? Oh, mine will be blooming soon enough.
