Beef and Orange Tagine

I mentioned when I did a previous tagine recipe that I really have a problem with sweet fruit in savoury recipes. I then completely had an arse-about-face moment and subsequently wrote up recipes for pineapple sambal and pineapple fried rice. However, that doesn't count because the sambal is a relish and the rice is an accompaniment. My blog, my rules. And that same rule is getting bent just a little bit more now with this with its actual orange content. Well, at least it's not apricots, prunes or raisins that not only don't deserve a place in any dish, savoury or sweet, but actually ought to be projected into the heart of the fucking sun because they are the very stones from the devil's own infernal gall bladder.

Regular guest star of this blog, Rick Stein, usually twats on endlessly about how he's made such-and-such a dish for years, after being taught how to cook it when he was staying at a chateau in France or something. Another famous chef, Nigel Slater, also seems to only cook things that he ate as a child just how his Mum made it. Recipes all done and dusted, all ingredients bought and prepared. However, in sweary cooking, you sometimes have to busk it a little, or, in the words of Blackadder, "Needs must when the devil vomits in your kettle". I'd planned on cooking up a nice lamb tagine but, could I find any lamb in my local shops? Could I bollocks! I bought some beef and decided to improvise this and it turned out quite well.

TIMING
Preparation 15-20 minutes
Cooking 3 hours

INGREDIENTS
2tbsp olive oil
400g cubed stewing beef
1 medium to large onion, roughly chopped
3 large cloves garlic, crushed
Zest and juice of one orange
1 courgette, sliced
2 large tsp ras-el-hanout
1 carrot, sliced
1 tbsp tomato puree
pinch saffron
250 ml water
1 chicken stock cube

RECIPE
 Heat the oil in a flame proof casserole dish or tagine on the hob.

Add the beef and brown before removing with a slotted spoon

Turn down the heat, add the onion and garlic to the pot and allow to sweat for 10 minutes.

Throw in the carrot and carry on frying gently for another 5 minutes

Add the courgette and ras-al-hanout for a minute return the meat to the dish then add the rest of the ingredients.

Mix well, replace the pot lid and put in an oven at 150 for three hours, checking every hour or so.

Add a little more water if the dish starts to get a bit dry.

Serve it up with something like couscous, with or without a nice Moroccan flat bread

NOTES
As I said in my preamble, I had planned to make a lamb tagine but I couldn't get any lamb. I got beef and then figured orange would go well with beef and worked from there. This recipe may actually work OK with lamb but I've not tried it.

Ras-el-hanout is one of those wanky-sounding spice mixes that are listed in ingredients of recipes like this when they appear in the Grauniad. I'm reliably informed that this means "top of the shop" in Arabic because it contains the best ingredients they sell in the local spice shop. In actuality it's essentially a variation on a mild curry powder, with an emphasis on aromatic rather than hot spices It's not that different to garam masala (yes, I realise that is another wanky-sounding spice mix, but it's a little less obscure), though if you do use garam masala, this dish will taste a lot like your regular curries.

You could blend your own R-e-H and there are lots of suggestions of which spices to use online, though I bought some from my fave Asian supermarket Mullaco which I swear by. Actually, given the nature of my cooking style, I swear by pretty much fucking everything

Whilst I actually enjoyed this dish, Mrs Sweary thought it was perhaps had a little too much orange, so you might consider halving the amount of orange zest. On the other hand I suspect Mrs Sweary is actually one of the crows from the Kia-Ora advert below. It's actually quite difficult to believe something like this was not only acceptable on UK TV in the 80s, and yet seems to be remembered with some fondness today. It's actually more racist that a UKIP member's wet dream. Whatever, the point is my beef tagine with orange is too orangey for Mrs Sweary. It's just for me and my dog.

I'll be your dog
More offensive black stereotypes than you can shake a burning cross at. But, hey, it's just to sell juice

Admit it, this the first cooking blog that has used the word "vomits" that you have read.

Orange-fragranced couscous

Couscous is the New York of starchy meal bulkers: so good they named it twice. Before the British public became all up to date on their international foods, if you asked the man in the street what it was, he might have thought couscous was some horrendous tropical disease, up there with dengue, ebola or gonorrhoea contracted from a kathoey you picked up in a bar in Pattaya. Now, of course, it's common knowledge that it's the stuff that's a bit like rice that they have in Morocco. It's the height of sophistication, Mockney wanker Jamie Oliver uses it because it's "pukka" (whatever the fuck that means). It's made of wheat. If you were a foodie wanker, in fact, you could say couscous was deconstructed pasta or pasta not yet constructed. It's so fucking exotic! It's semolina made from durum wheat. Hang on a minute, but isn't semolina that gruel-like stuff they used to serve for dessert in school dinners in that dazzlingly day-glo pink sauce? Oh, yeah. So it is. Shows you, repackage any old bollocks and you can make a fortune.

Anyway, that reminds me of a joke. What is the Pink Panther's favourite type of wheat? Durum, Durum, Durum-Durum-Durum-Durum. OK, that works better if you say it out loud and you know this tune

INGREDIENTS

1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 small red onion, finely chopped
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 red pepper, finely chopped
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
5 cherry tomatoes (or about 100g regular sized), skinned and chopped
handful of green olives, sliced
pinch of saffron
pepper
salt
1 mug of dry couscous (see instructions, but should be about 125g for two people)
1 mug of boiling water

RECIPE
In a shallow pan, heat the oil and fry up the onion and garlic on a medium to low heat until soft.

Add the celery and pepper and continue to fry for another couple of minutes until they are also soft.

For the saffron and orange zest, put it in a cup and add about a tablespoon of boiling water and let it steep for a couple of minutes.

Add this to the pan along with salt and pepper to taste.

Throw in the chopped olives, tomatoes and pour in the couscous.

Stir well so all the grains of couscous get a good coating of oil. Pour this mixture into an oven or microwave-proof dish.

Next add the boiling water and orange juice. The total volume you add needs to be the same as the volume of the couscous added, so add the orange juice to a cup then makeup the volume with the boiling water.

Mix well, cover as tightly as possible and put in an oven for 5-10 minutes if you happen to have something in it (such as the previously posted recipe of lamb tagine) or else, stick it in the microwave for about a minute then leave to stand for another two or three.

NOTES
This dish is a great accompaniment to Moroccan food such as my lamb tagine, but it can work as a meal in its own right, especially if you add a few more vegetables. Also, it's got no meat in it

There's none of this "boiling for a few minutes" bollocks with your couscous. Oh no. Just add boiling water, let it soak in and it's pretty much cooked.


I said it above and I'll say it again. It's made of wheat. There's a big, faddy movement against wheat in some circles, especially in the fitness business. Wheat is often portrayed as the most evil foodstuff in the larder, responsible for many of the dietary ills of modern life. Probably the most vocal of these critics are those selling the Paleolithic Diet. Proponents of the Paleo diet believe that we should be eating only food that cave-people ate before the dawn of organised agriculture because it is is what we evolved to eat. This is the cuisine of Luddites. These people really are drawing the fun out of food. They are the Jimmy Savile presenting a really good episode of Top of the Pops 2 of the food world. No pasta, no couscous, no bread, no beer and absolutely no scientific basis for the whole Paleo dietary movement. If, however, you do want to make a Paleo version of this dish, simply substitute the couscous for shredded sabretooth tiger.

Sorry for no pictures in this recipe. I shall take some next time I do this recipe and post them as an update.