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This Moroccan lamb tagine is perfect for winning a crowd over

Discover the flavours of North Africa with this lamb tagine with sultanas and pinenuts.

Serves: 7
Prep: 20 mins
Cooking: 2.5 hours – hands-off cooking
Difficulty: easy
Ideal for: crowd-pleaser, lamb lovers
Budget: £

Moroccan cuisine has been greatly influenced by trade with other cultures and nations over the centuries. Moroccan cuisine is typically a mix of Berber, Arabic, Andalusian, and Mediterranean cuisines with slight European and sub-Saharan influences.

Slow-cooking tagine style

The cone-shaped top is all about moisture.

It traps the steam and water goes back into the pot keeping your slow-cooked food deliciously moist and helping tenderise cheaper cuts of meat.

And when you think of a tagine you think of spices.

The usual suspects are turmeric, cinnamon, saffron, ginger, and cumin.

And you’ll often find recipes that include dried fruit and nuts, fresh herbs, olives and preserved lemons.

The Berber tagine is a recipe that is all about how the vegetables are arranged artistically in a conical style to hide the meat.

The truth is… you can cook anything you like in these stunning dishes.

Do I need a tagine dish to make this?

The short answer is, no.

You can happily make this delicious recipe with a Dutch oven/casserole dish.

But the key is to have a good lid as so the moisture drips back into the dish.

Lamb tagine with sultanas and pinenuts

The best thing about North African food is the amazing spices.

Spices

A key one for a tagine is Ras el Hanout which means ‘top of the shop’ – meaning the best spices in the shop.

It’s a vibrant and aromatic blend with hints of warmth, earthiness, sweetness, and a touch of spiciness.

Ras el Hanout blend is a combination of spices, including cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, and more.

Ras el Hanout substitute

You can make it yourself if you have a good spice rack (I popped in a BBC Good Food recipe, below).

However, if you don’t have time to make up a batch of Ras el Hanout or get to a shop here are some good substitutes to use.

Coriander, saffron, or a mixture of paprika, cumin, and ground ginger.

Or if you baharat or garam masala, they can be substituted in as well.

Here’s BBC Good Food’s recipe…

Ingredients

2 ½ tbsp cumin seed
2 tbsp coriander seed
1 tbsp ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp black peppercorn
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp cardamom pod (seeds from about 10 pods)
a good pinch of saffron (optional)

Method

Toast the whole spices in a small pan until they are aromatic and have turned a shade or two darker. Don’t be tempted to skip this stage, as it really enhances the flavours.
Tip into a spice grinder (or use a pestle and mortar), then add the ready-ground spices and dried herbs if required, and crush to a fine powder. Store in a sealed jar for up to six months.

History of tagines

Tagine is the word for the slow-cooked method of cooking.

And is core to Moroccan cuisine and culture for hundreds of years.

It’s a type of North African cookware made of clay or ceramic.

Which has a fantastic conical shape that you can both cook and serve from and looks impressive sitting in the middle of your table.

It’s a bit like the word, casserole, which means both the dish and the cooking method (I mention this in my recipe for chorizo stew).

The tagines’ origin dates to when Harun al Rashid ruled the Islamic Empire, in the late 18th century.

However, as usual, there is a bit of debate about food history and it’s also thought using ceramics in Moroccan cooking came from Roman influence.

The Romans were big on ceramics and were found during their rule of Roman Africa.

Either way, we can now enjoy amazing recipes from this old method of cooking.

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