Honey and Lemon Lamb Tagine

You might remember Dear Readers, that a few months ago I wrote a post about the lovely people over at Capilano Honey and their delicious 100% owned and grown Australian Honey.
http://intolerantchef.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/sublime-honey-sorbet.html


While celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, they are still certainly committed to coming up with exciting and yummy new ideas including the latest Honeyfusions- delicious pure Australian Honey with unique flavours including Honey & Vanilla Bean and Honey & Lemon perfect for cooking and baking, in tea, on top of desserts and ice-cream, or pancakes and crumpets. Yummo!

Let me tell you- they are GOOD! The Honey and Vanilla was the pick for my family, and I have hidden it just to make sure that I can get some before they scoffed it all, but the Honey and Lemon is lovely as well. There were some gorgeous sounding recipes on the Capilano website and all, but I really like to use honey as a savoury ingredient so decided to use it in something just a little bit different.


Lemon and honey to me speak of a lovely sweet/tart middle eastern type of cooking. Lamb is a good match for the flavour combination, and using fruit is the perfect way to pull all the flavours together into one glorious whole. I decided to make a Honey and Lemon Lamb Tagine.

A tagine is a slow cooked type of stew that is traditionally cooked in a domed vessel that's also called a tagine. It uses very little liquid because the steam is trapped inside the dish and creates it's own delicious sauce. I don't have a real tagine to play with, so I used a cast iron casserole dish with a tight fitting lid instead, but you could also slow bake this in the oven or use a slow cooker or pressure cooker instead if you like. I promise I won't tell :)



Honey and Lemon Lamb Tagine

1kg Lamb- I used lamb steak
Chickpeas 1 tin, rinsed and drained
Prunes, about a cup or so to taste
1 big Onion
3 or 4 fresh Tomatoes
inch of fresh Ginger
2 Cinnamon sticks
pinch of Saffron
1/4 cup Capillano Honey and Lemon Fusion
(or 1/4 cup honey and juice and rind of half a lemon cut into strips, or some slices of preserved lemon instead)
splash of Oil
Seasoning

To make a lovely smooth sauce base for the tagine, grate together the onion, tomato and ginger. Of course you can chop them up, but this is just a bit nicer and more refined. You don't want there to be a lot of liquid in the dish, the end result should be just nice and moist not swimming in sauce

Place the saffron in a tablespoon of warm water and let it infuse while you get on with the rest of the prep. Saffron is such a lovely ingredient with a sort of musty, honey scented hay vibe going on. That doesn't sound very appealing, but it really tastes quite lovely- I promise! Oh, and just bragging, but this is my very own homegrown saffron BTW :)

Brown off the lamb in a splash of oil to seal in all the lovely juices and make it look appealing too

Time to add in the rest of the ingredients now
Dollop on the tomato mixture, scatter on the chickpeas, dot the prunes around artistically, pour over the saffron and water, and tuck the cinnamon sticks in too

Now the star ingredient, drizzle the honey evenly all over the tagine ingredients

It will infuse the mix with a lovely mix of sweet and tart, and help turn the sauces nice and glossy in the finished dish

Simmer gently for about 30-45 minutes, or until the meat is lovely and tender and just starting to fall apart. Of course if you're using a secondary cut of meat or chunks it might take longer, so just check on it from time to time and make sure that there is just enough liquid in the pot to stop it sticking and drying out.
About half way through the cooking time, turn the meat over and just sort of poke the rest of the ingredients about a bit. If you give it a good stir the prunes and meat will break up and the dish will look messy later on, so be gentle

I served my tagine on quinoa instead of gluteny cous cous, but you could use rice instead if you like.
The meat was so tender it could be cut with a fork, the chickpeas had become nice and creamy, and the sauce had become glossy and syrupy and sweet.

Just before digging in, I drizzled another little teaspoon over each plate to freshen it up a little and just reinforce the flavour profile of sweet and tart all in one. Yummo!

So Dear Readers, what's your favourite Honey recipe, and would you prefer Honey and Lemon or Honey and Vanilla?

Disclosure: Honey was gifted by the lovely people at Capilano. Thanks guys!

http://capilano.com.au/

Sublime Honey Sorbet

Have you heard of Capilano Honey?


Capilano Honey is the market leader of honey in Australia, packing premium quality honey produced by Australian beekeepers. They are a fantastic Australian company that have been having a bit of a tough time lately.

Last week there was a fire in one of the sheds at their main site in Brisbane, and earlier last month Capilano co-founder, Tim Smith sadly passed away.

Tim and his brother Bert began the business around Brisbane back in 1953, and the business name Capilano comes from the Capilano district in Canada where Tim met his wife Jill when he was stationed there in WW2  and later proposed to her on the Capilano Bridge- how romantic!

Happily there is still some great stuff going on at Capilano, where they have recently launched their first Australian Certified Organic Honey.
Capilano's normal premium blend is pure natural honey from Australian hives, but consumer and professional demand for Organic goods has led to the Australian Organic Certification for this delicious product.


When I first heard about this honey, I thought about my parents farm on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, which is also certified organic. Knowing  how tricky that is to maintain, I wondered,  how on earth do you track thousands of bees each and every day to know where they fly off to?
Well, apparently all hives must be organic, and only exposed to natural environments including the exclusion of all pesticides for pest management and crops, within 5km of surrounding land. The native flora the honey is extracted from, right down to the diet of the bees themselves needs to be certified organic as well. You must be pretty dedicated to take on that job!

I was lucky enough to be sent a lovely bottle of delcious organic honey to play with, and wanted to come up with a recipe that would show off it's flavour as well as using it's great health benefits to shake off my lingering Winter flu/lurgy.

I didn't want to actually 'cook' with the honey as heating it can destroy some of it's health giving properties, which are quite antibacterial, and Capilano purposly doesn't pasteurise the honey either as it just isn't necesary with such a great natural product.


Through my flu-ridden fog, somehow I came up with Honey Sorbet.

Perfect! It would show off all the fantastic qualities of the honey, only used 3 ingredients, was delicious, easy, and nice and soothing to swallow. Win Win for me!

200 ml Capilano Organic Honey
50 ml-ish Liquid Glucose
500 ml Water

Honey is just perfect for sweetness and flavour, you need extra for a frozen dessert. The glucose is to keep the ice crystals nice and small. You also need as much air incorporated into the mix as possible for a lovely smooth end result

For a few tips on making great sorbet, check out this earlier post :
http://intolerantchef.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/seasonal-cheer.html





Put the glucose and water into a saucepan and heat until just boiling, stirring now and then to melt the glucose

Let it cool, but while still fairly warm, stir in the honey, and keep mixing until it's totally dissolved

Pour into a shallow container and chill throughly

Churn the lovely liquid mixture in an icecream machine- I used my Kenwood IceCream Bowl Attatchment-  or pull your bowl out of the freezer and whisk from time to time as it's setting to avoid large ice crystals forming and to keep it fluffy and light

Look how gorgeous this is!

Serve your sublime Honey Sorbet as a lovely light dessert- secure in the knowlege that it's fat free, delicious, organic, and good for you. Guilt free eating at it's best!

So Dear Readers, are you more inclined to buy a product if it's certified Organic?






Disclosure: Honey was gifted by the lovely people at Capilano. Thanks guys!


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