 There was a time when cooking a tagine was a regular thing for me, and it's high time it made a comeback. North African food is unique due to its geographic location and cultural history; the cuisine is like a merging of Middle Eastern, African and French flavour profiles.
A prominent feature of Moroccan food is the combination of protein and fruit, and often nuts - think classic dishes like chicken with preserved lemon, or couscous with a smattering of dried fruit and toasted almonds tumbled through it. Moroccan dishes often also feature honey. Lamb, Prune and Almond Tagine hits all of those beautiful flavour notes. Often made with apricots, I love the prune version because of the subtle sweetness and delicious stickiness they develop as it cooks. Speaking of pots… Tagine the Food vs Tagine the Cooking Vessel When a dish is named after the vessel it's cooked in, things can sound a little confusing. A Tagine - the cooking vessel - is a clay cooking pot with a funnelled lid. Tagine - the food - is a combination of meat, vegetables and spices cooked in this pot. I don't use a tagine pot, which is not the cultural crime it may seem! Most restaurants and many homes in Morocco these days use regular pots instead, as traditional tagines are designed for cooking over a fire. The signature spice blend of Morocco is ras-el-hanout. A true essential in cooking food from this region, in Arabic it literally means ‘head of the shop’. Its true translation ‘top shelf’; think of it as the cornerstone of the Moroccan flavour profile. You can buy ready-made ras-el-hanout in supermarkets, but chances are you already have most of the spices in your pantry. If you're missing one or two spices, it's not a big deal - the recipe changes from region to region. What to serve with tagine: Flatbread, tomato and cucumber salad, green salad, saffron rice all pair nicely with tagine. Interestingly, tagine is not traditionally served with couscous but it works well with it so go ahead!
0 Comments
 I am often drawn to Indian flavour profiles when I'm cooking with pulses because what other cuisine is so adept at turning humble legumes into such a rich variety of dishes?
We're calling these delicious morsels fritters. In India they go by many names like pakora,vada and bora depending on the region. These are somewhat like a falafel, although the outside is much crunchier and the inside lighter and fluffier. Whereas a falafel is made of Chickpea flour (aka Besan), these use split chickpeas - Chana Dahl that are simply soaked, blitzed and fried. Another selling point is there's no need to pre-cook the chana dahl. I like to serve these with a variety of accompaniments for dipping. For a quick meal, chutney and natural yoghurt are an excellent, no fuss choice, or you can go accoutrement crazy. Think palak (spinach curry), coconut chutney, tomato and tamarind chutney, mint and coriander chutney and lime pickle. I served mine with tomato and tamarind chutney, mint and coriander sauce and spinach curry. (pictured above)  Risotto is a classic crowd pleaser, but I think in recent years it's been wrongly tainted with the ‘difficult’ brush. We've seen it break aspiring supercooks on reality shows, and judges on these shows talk solemnly about the ‘risotto curse’, advising contestants to think carefully before attempting it.
But honestly, if you're not serving it at a fine dining restaurant, getting the consistency of a risotto exactly right just doesn't matter or affect the enjoyment of it at all. I'm of the firm opinion that a good-enough risotto is still utterly delicious. The babysitting that cooking a risotto requires is a different story - when it comes to mid-week dinners most of us are after more of a set-and-forget recipe. What if you could skip the stovetop stirring, pass most of the work to your oven and still produce a delicious risotto? Our ‘cheat's’ risotto is just that. It's been well and truly tested and tweaked. Hands-on time is just 15 minutes! It requires a small number of ingredients, yet the flavour is nuanced and delicious. All you need is a lemon, a few sprigs of rosemary and a little parmesan. Enjoy it as a stand-alone dish or use it as an accompaniment to the main event. We hope you love this creamy, luxurious feeling classic with a shortcut twist!  “I miss my mother’s rajma” one of our regular customers lamented a while back while scooping kidney beans into a bag. We nodded sagely for a second then dropped the pretence that we knew what he was talking about. We realised there was a very good chance that he was talking about a delicious dish made by his Northern Indian mum, and that if we played our cards right he might share the recipe with us.
“Rajma” he said dreamily. “It’s a curry made with kidney beans . But it’s so much more than that. It can’t be explained. You just have to taste it”. He didn’t know his mother’s exact recipe but he pointed us in the right direction. Suzanne was on the case, and by the end of the week had produced a pot of Rajma. Not wanting to be left out, I made it the following day and we had a rajma-off. Suzanne won! How to explain rajma… it’s rich, bright, creamy sauce is reminiscent of butter chicken, and the kidney beans give it a comforting, velvety texture. It’s delicious, and we couldn’t wait to share it with you.  Bánh xèo (translation: Sizzling Pancakes) are crispy, golden, thin-as-can-be savoury pancakes filled with a selection of umami-loaded prawns, tender poached chicken, crunchy sprouts, salad greens and fragrant herbs, then served with the classic Vietnamese dipping sauce, nước chấm.
Read that description to yourself again, then take a moment to absorb the words and all the promises they hold. Good, huh? And yet it still doesn't come close to describing the flavour experience this simple recipe delivers. This dish is all at once lively, sharp, crunchy, fresh, spicy, cooling, sweet, comforting and satisfying. When someone tries it for the first time, their reactions range from exclamations of “OMG. Why didn't I know about these and why isn't everyone everywhere eating them all the time?!” through to quietly weeping in joy and wonder. There are several elements to this dish and at first glance you might think it's too much work. And while it's not a 20 minute mid-week meal, it's actually not so much effort. The trick is this: if you're going to make it, make a lot. This recipe makes about 12 pancakes, which is great for 3-4 people. For 2 people, it's even better because the batter keeps for up to 5 days in the fridge. While you will want to use up the prawn filling on the first day, it takes 5 minutes to make a different filling when you go in for round two a day or two later. About the batter ingredients: Flour: traditionally these pancakes are made using rice flour only. I added wheat flour after reading up on different Bánh xèo techniques, because the consensus is that adding wheat flour makes for a more robust pancake, less prone to tearing. The crispiness comes from it being mostly rice flour. Egg: I add an egg to my batter, again in the interest of increased robustness. You don't have to. Many don't. But you'll need to be delicate with your flipping skills. Resting: Some Bánh xèo recipes instruct you to rest the batter for 3 hours or even overnight. I went rogue and didn't do this. I found that the 45 mins of resting I gave it between mixing the batter and preparing my fillings was sufficient. The next day I made more pancakes with the leftover batter, and I didn't see any marked difference. Mung beans: note that I don't include mung beans in my recipe. They're a traditional filling in a lot of Bánh xèo recipes. I'd like to tell you that I omit them due to a strong or informed opinion, but honestly it's just that I can't be bothered. The dish is perfect as is, and why boil mung beans on top of the other fillings that need to be prepared if you don't have to? My stovetop is busy enough. Let's get cooking! |
Categories
All
Archives
October 2024
|
RSS Feed