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/

Mission Impossible

Littlej is an enthusiastic student

Actually, on her report card her science teacher used the word Boisterous- but in a good way, she did get an 'A'

One of those kiddies who love going to school, love their subjects, and love their teachers. She also loves extra-curriculars and throws herself into them entirely without thinking of the consequences when they all coincide.

This is one of those weeks

Three days this week are off classes-  One at a Peer Review training day on Sustainability, One as a full day practice for an Academic tournament (they won silver last year for all Australasia), One at a Junior United Nations (training for International Crisis Management- will it stop her arguing with her sister though?)
One evening at her self defence class (in case International Peace Keeping Talks break down perhaps)
One evening at a further rehearsal for the Tournament
All day on the Weekend at the Tournament
Plus 2 assignments due, including a hand crafted example of Medieval history- in this case making a portion of chain mail armour... link by link by link by link by link.......

littlej is confident she can handle it all in her stride
Mum is yet to be convinced

Anyway, my Mission Impossible this week is to keep her healthy, happy and well fed- not as easy as usual with so much running around and odd appointments. The answer to this dilemma was obvious: Impossible Pie

A couple of minutes to make, thrown together in one bowl with the crust forming Impossibly while it bakes. Tasty hot or cold, lunch or dinner- even breakfast (well it is eggs and bacon right) Imagine the possibilities!

Basic Pie

1/3 cup Gluten free Flour
4 Eggs
1 1/2 cup lactose free Milk
1 1/2 cup Cheese/Cheesy style substitute like soy cheese (Mini Chol available at Coles is good)
1 cup Bacon pieces
Salt and Pepper to taste
(Various Extras to taste)


One of the great things about this pie/quiche is that you can mix and match the filling to what you have on hand
I've included spinach and spring onion, but you could use a tin of salmon, grated carrot or zucchini, shredded cooked chicken or whatever happens to take your fancy at the time

Pop the flour, eggs, milk and seasonings into a bowl and give them a quick whisk until nice and smooth with no lumpy bits

Just like this one

Add in the bacon, cheese and Various Extras, then stir through

Pour into a well greased oven proof dish, just making sure the filling ingredients are well distributed so share-sies are fair-sies

Bake at 200*C for 40 mins, then check to see if the pie is nice and set without too much wobble, but give another 5 minutes if needed
Can anyone spot my deliberate mistake? I purposely left mine in for that extra 5 minutes to show you what-not-to-do. I'm nice like that :)

......Mine obviously didn't need that extra 5minutes... or the previous 5 minutes either

I blame my new Microwave/Oven/Grill thingy for the burnished top as I'm still getting used to it and am finding out I need to drop the temperature just a bit as compared to my beautiful big oven.
My microwave recently gave up on me, and I decided that  Convection combi was the way to go. There's nothing wrong with my other oven but I thought the little one would be handy if I just wanted to cook a small dish. It is- but I'm still figuring it out :)
BTW the top wasn't burnt, it's just the spinach bits that look really dark- but I caught it just in time!

Let's just ignore the top for the moment shall we, and concentrate on looking at how the flour sort of sifted down to the bottom of the pie to create a firm base. Obviously not flaky and crispy, but perfect for holding it's form and offering stability to the pie

Despite the extra time in the oven, the pie is lovely and creamy inside and was a big hit with littlej stuffing it down at 4pm for an early dinner to hold her off until she was back at 8.30pm for more. It was also handy for holding cold wedges one handed while grabbing her bags and running out the door, and nice to eat warmed up with the new oven on microwave mode for lunch

Mission Complete. Impossible?.... Not with this recipe!



Pie flipped over for photos to show you how the base looks (not to hide the burnt bits, I promise :P )

So Dear Readers, have you ever had an Impossible Week, and have you had trouble adjusting to a new appliance before?











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