Contents
Intro
The new foods from new cultures theme continues this week with a trip to Morocco. In addition to having never cooked something from Morocco, I’d never cooked lamb before so the ability to get two birds with one stone made the choice of Cook’s Illustrated’s Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Lemons and Olives an appealing one.
An important caveat: neither Katie nor I like olives so there’d be none in this recipe despite their title role in the dish.
Prepping the Dish
The ingredient list was more numerous than the previous few dishes I’d made, but still quite manageable thanks to great minds at ATK. Equally as helpful was that the prep was really easy and required nothing complex. This is yet another dish where reading the directions ahead a few times and having an organized mise en place is helpful. This is especially true because the spices and garlic quantities are in small quantities and lend themselves to being placed.
The best part of this prep is putting the aromatics together. Coriander, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne, and a healthy amount of garlic made for a great smelling mixture, and one that can easily be adapted to lots of dishes, especially Asian dishes.
Cooking the Dish
The only active cooking for this dish was browning the lamb to create LOTS of fond. I wasn’t expecting this much fond to develop, but I was excited to it. There was so much that I was a little worried it wouldn’t release from the pot when the chicken broth was added. After I added the onions and lemon zest strips, I saw some pieces of fond were releasing just from the liquid coming out of the onions. Seeing that, I knew I’d release with no problem.
The addition of the aromatic spice mixture just before adding the chicken broth, carrots, and returning the lamb was everything I expected: a smell of something warm and delicious with the cinnamon and garlic featuring prominently.
When I returned the lamb, I put a cooking probe in one of the pieces to keep an eye on the lamb’s temperature. I was surprised to see the internal temperature still high from the browning, and after only about 10 minutes, the lamb was medium rare. I was initially worried how soon this happened since the recipe said it’d take an hour to cook, but I reread the directions and it said to cook the lamb “until tender”. So I let it sit on low heat for another 50 minutes.
With that time elapsed, the next step was to remove the lamb, reduce the sauce slightly, added cilantro, and the last of the minced garlic and lemon zest. It all smelled good and I enjoyed finishing the dish with lemon juice from my new citrus juicer. Humorously, I had NO idea how to plate this dish. I went with a large dinner plate and immediately regretted that decision so it quickly went into a salad bowl.
Overall Impressions
I decided to dip a finger into the sauce and take a taste because I’m always a fan of sauces and there was plenty to go around. Initially, I was struck by how tart it was from the lemon so I added a few healthy grinds of the pepper mill. That helped a little, but there was still something unappealing to me that would linger for the entire meal.
I have a descriptive set of taste buds and even if I don’t know the flavor, I can talk my way through what something tastes like (ex. It tastes bright, or it tastes woodsy/earthy, etc.), but I couldn’t find the words to describe this. Could it have been under seasoned and in need of salt and pepper? Maybe, as is evident from the little help the additional pepper provided. Should I have taken the lamb out before adding the lemon and then stirred that into the sauce to ensure better incorporation? That wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but I think that only would’ve gone so far. Did leaving out the olives remove an ingredient so valuable to the dish that it became completely unbalanced with out? It’s possible, in which case the dish was doomed from the beginning.
Based on the ingredients, the only culprit I can think of is the lamb. I’ve had grilled lollipop lamb before and I enjoy it, so maybe it was just this cut of lamb I found unappealing? I don’t know, especially since the lamb was very tender and well cooked. What bothers me most of all about this dish isn’t that I didn’t like it, but I don’t know WHY I didn’t like it.
I’d spend the rest of the dinner talking to Katie trying to figure out what we didn’t like about the dish. This was probably a good thing because I focused on figuring out what I was tasting and distracted myself from thinking about the taste. I honestly didn’t want to finish what I’d plated for myself, but I found myself taking seconds to see if I’d figure it out on a second go. No luck. Sad panda.
When all was said and done, the only obvious conclusion Katie and I reached was that neither of us liked the dish. This wasn’t like the pasta dish I made two weeks ago where I was disappointed in how the dish turned out, but still happily ate it and the leftover. In fact, I’m disappointed to report that upon cooling, all the leftovers were immediately put in shopping bags and thrown in the outside garbage bin. Sometimes a dish isn’t meant to be, and I guess this is one of them.
Final Word
(Usually I don’t make the disclaimer I’m about to make because I believe it’s implied, but given the way the dish turned out, it’s important to say the following: take my views on this dish with a big grain of salt and recognize my tastes are different from yours.)
In a nutshell, I didn’t like the way this dish turned out and while I’m usually willing to give dishes a second try, I’m unlikely to do that here because I can’t figure what I didn’t like about it. If I could isolate what ingredient I didn’t like and why, I might be in a position to alter something in the dish’s preparation. Even then, I fear what I didn’t like about the dish was the lamb itself, and it’s tough to change a dish when what you don’t like is the taste of the main protein.
That said, not all is lost with this dish. The garlic aromatic spice mixture was very promising and didn’t deserve to be associated with the final outcome of the dish. Looking online, I saw a recipe for chicken tangie that I’ll be sure to try and I hope that mixture is included there. Additionally, aside from the lamb, I consider all the ingredients required for this dish ones you’re more likely than not to have in your kitchen or ones that are useful to have in a kitchen.
Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Lemon
Time: 1:20 Yields: 4-6
Ingredients
- 5 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 5 teaspoons)
- 1 ¼ teaspoons sweet paprika
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 (2-inch-long) strips lemon zest from 1 to 2 lemons
- 3 ½ – 4 pounds lamb shoulder chops, about 1 inch thick
- Salt and ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick coins, very large pieces cut into half-moons (about 2 cups)
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 3 tablespoons juice from 1 to 2 lemons
Directions
- Combine 4 teaspoons of the garlic, paprika, cumin, cayenne, ginger, coriander, and cinnamon together in a small bowl and set aside. Mince 1 strip of the lemon zest and mix with the remaining teaspoon of minced garlic in a separate small bowl; set aside.
- Pat the lamb chops dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown half of the chops on both sides, 5 to 8 minutes per side, reducing the heat if the pan begins to scorch. Transfer the chops to a plate, leaving the fat in the pot. Return the pot with the fat to medium-high heat and repeat with the remaining chops; transfer the chops to the plate.
- Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat left in the pot. Add the onion and the remaining 2 lemon zest strips and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the garlic-spice mixture and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the carrots, broth, and honey, scraping up any browned bits.
- Nestle the chops, along with any accumulated juices, into the pot and bring to a simmer. Cover, turn the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the chops are fully cooked and tender, about 1 hour.
- Transfer the chops to a serving dish, tent loosely with foil, and let rest while finishing the sauce. Skim as much fat as possible off the surface of the sauce, and return to a simmer until the sauce is thickened slightly and the carrots are tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Return the chops to the pot. Stir in the garlic-lemon zest mixture, cilantro, and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
The Quincy Kitchen 