Tagine - Cold Winter Months

With the cold weather here, a Tagine meal is an idea family dinner idea.
It is so easy to do, just place the ingredients into the tagine pot and let it cook for a couple of hours. Make some Cous Cous and there you have it. A fantastic meal for the who family.

Check out our great range of tagines

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SBS Food Safari - Orecchiette con cime di rapa

Orecchiette con cime di rapa - This was a very easy dish to cook, and amazingly, the teenage kids loved it. We didn't think we would have any left for us. The recipe can be found here:

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/italianfoodsafari/recipes/detail/recipe/9107

We used Durum Flour instead which was lovely. You can get the flour from this site. The services was fantastic:

Rick Stein's Cha Ca

http://www.gourmetcookshop.com.au/

a simple lovely dish, ideal for a hot summers day with a glass of wine. If you get the book, well worth trying

Rick Stein's Cha Ca

This weekend will be the Fried Fish with Turmeris and Dill ( Cha Ca ). It looks so simple on the TV and Rick mentions it was life changing for him. Lets see how it matches up. I'll update the notes and add pictures during the weekend

Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey

Now this is a cookbook to die for. Linh came across the ABC show last week, so she rushed out to buy a copy. On Saturday we tried the Khmer Pork, Coconut and Pineapple Curry along with the Cured Beef Salad with Lemongrass, peanuts and basil. So amazing ! The Taste was sensational.

Even the kids loved it. Now the task will be to keep going through the recipe book and making the rest. We'll keep you posted.

Linh is waiting for the DVD to be released in June from the ABC, but for the time being we'll have to watch it on the TV as well as read the book

watch the series

Gourmet Cook goes onto Twitter

It's been a while since we've updated this blog, but we've been out trying new and exciting dishes. In the coming months we'll update this blog to let you know what recipes books we've been reviewing and what the recipes are like.

Some of these will be available from our online store, or from the major retailers. At the moment the team are watching the SBS food Safari for exciting ideas, and we've just got the new Rick Stein cookbook. More to come...

As always, you can browse the site and order online or ask questions

http:\\www.gourmetcookshop.com.au

Tagine of Lamb Shanks

(This is a lovely hearty dish, an ideal winter warmer. This recipe easily fed our family of five)

Ingredients

Paste
8 cloves of garlic
1TB chopped ginger
1TB chopped galangal or 2tsp powder (optional)
1 chilli
2tsp sea salt flakes
1 tsp ground mixed peppercorns
4 shallots thinly sliced
1TB each of Ras El Hanout and Moorish Harira spice mix
6TB olive oil
2TB fish sauce
2TB palm sugar or raw sugar

3 lamb shanks about 1.5 kgs – ask your butcher to cut in half as it’s easier to manage
2 carrots cut into wedges
2 potatoes cut into wedges
4 salad onions quartered
250gm mini roma tomatoes quartered (or about 2-3 vine ripened tomatoes
4 semi dried apricots halved
4 fresh or dried dates halved
4 bay leaves
200 ml chicken stock (approximate)
Lime and extra fish sauce to serve

Method

Paste
Blend or grind the garlic, ginger, galangal and chilli to make a coarse paste.
Mix in the sea salt and peppercorns.
Add to this mixture the sliced shallots, ras el hanout, Moorish harissa and olive oil. Mix in to combine.
Place mixture in medium frypan on high heat and cook for about 3 minutes, you should start to smell the beautiful aroma from the mixture.
Turn down heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add the fish sauce and palm sugar and continue to cook for about another minute or two till mixture starts to caramalise a bit then turn off heat and set aside.

Season the lamb shanks with some salt and pepper.
Place shanks in the tagine and drizzle the paste over the shanks. Turn the shanks to coat in the paste.
Put tagine on stove on medium/low heat .
Add the remaining ingredients (only pour enough stock to cover base of tagine) and stir through.
Place lid on tagine and let it heat up.
Once this is heated up and starts bubbling a bit turn down heat to low and allow to cook for 2-3 hours (till the lamb becomes tender and falls off the bone).
Please be aware that during the cooking process extra juices can develop so the best thing to do is when you see it start to surface and bubble between the base and the lid, skim some out then replace lid. Continue to do this till it settles. Alternatively if you find the liquid is drying out add extra stock.
If you prefer to use the oven – then transfer the tagine to the oven (temperature about 150°C ) after it has heated up on the stove top. (See Note for another alternative)
Just before serving sprinkle with some fish sauce and a squeeze of lime juice.
Serve with plain cooked rice.

(Note: for those who are fortunate enough to have a lovely combustion or pot belly fireplace and you happen to have it going all day, after you bring the tagine to the boil transfer it to sit on your fireplace. I can guarantee you that this is an exceptional way to slow cook your tagine. I tend to leave mine on there till ready to serve. Although watch if the surface of your fireplace does get too hot then remove from heat once lamb is cooked and tender similar as you would on a stove top)



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