Improvised Tagine like thing that works well if I've lots of guests, one or more of whome are vegan.

How I improvise a Tagine style of thing if i've got a bunch of gamers coming round goes like this:

Get more or less equal amounts of all of these things:

Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, Carrots, any coloured peppers you like, Chickpeas, Tomatoes (a mix of tinned and real is best), Onions.

Drain the Chickpeas, rince, clean and slice the rest of the above into D20 sized chunks or slightly larger, except for the onions which want to be smaller.

Get smaller, but not insignificant amounts of these, maybe a small handful of each:

Figs, Apricots, dried or fresh, a combination of dried and fresh is good. Slice it all up. Garlic, crush some cloves of garlic, but at least one bulb you can just slice in half.

Throw all of the above into a flat tray so it stacks up to about 5cm and chuck flaked almonds in there as well. Fuck it, chuck some pomegranate seeds or other some random fruit in there too. It’ll probably work out fine.

Ras el hanout! – Turmeric, Cumin, crushed Black Pepper, Salt, Smoked Paprica, Cayenne Pepper. Slice a whole big chilli, remove seeds or leave them in if you like or some of the nice dried chilli flakes you can get in MMM in the Grainger Market in Newcastle. Some fresh bunches of stuff if you have it, like Thyme, Coriander or parsley. A Bay leaf or two is probably useful in an undefined way. Lots of spices shaken on top of this all.

Sorry, I don’t know how to be vegan: I’d also usually add honey and some butter. There are tricks that vegans know I’m sure. I have heard of fig paste? I think this might be a good idea.

Anyway.

Pour on hot water and vegetable stock. By now you’ve completely overdone the spices. Fine. Stick it in the oven such that the water starts to bubble then turn it down to about 150/160 for a long time – two hours plus.

At the end you want it not to be watery, so if it’s looking too watery after an hour and a half turn up the heat a bit. There shouldn't be pools of water at the end, stir it round a bit so the chickpeas can absorb stuff. If it starts to burn on top you can stir it about a bit or put tin foil loosely over the top. If you still end up with water you don't want to waste that so use it to make the couscous.

This feeds many, many people and serve it with couscous.

Stacey Whittle has demonstrated that the best way to do couscous is to have it with chopped mint and coriander and pomegranate seeds.

Level UP!

This may end up looking like a mess, particularly if you've burned bits of it or left it too long and it goes a bit gooey. You can fix this and win the game by wrapping scoops of tagine-esq in filo pastry parcels, sprinkling caster sugar and almonds on top and return to the oven to cook the pastry. Caster sugar: absolutely.

This will provide a good contrasting texture to keep things interesting while also allowing it to not look like a complete mess. That's helpful.

Lamb Meatballs, with Chilli, Mint and Coriander.

So, we have some pretty big Chilli's (from the North East Chilli Festival, which Britt wrote about yesterday) and some Mint and Coriander, Red Onion, Cumin and Smoked Paprika from MMM Newcastle. This is much the same set of ingredients as in my Make it Mint post from a while back, but you get pictures this time.

Divide it up over some Lamb mince, quite a lot of it actually, and keep an egg on hand to bind it all together. Roll them into balls, get the herbs and spices as evenly spread through and into the middle of the lamb balls as possible.

Cooked in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, I should mention that they shouldn't really be moved much during cooking. Press down on one side, cook until the bottom is holding together then flip and press down on the other side. I don't know how long they took to cook. Probably just under ten minutes.

 We had them with Pitta bread, sour cream, a bit of salad and feta, and yes, that's going to work just fine right now but as with all such things the flavours develop a lot, so by day two or even three, the meatballs will be very, very good indeed. It's definitely worth making more than you can reasonably eat in one sitting.

Lamb Meatballs : Day 2

I added additional onions, peas and mushrooms to the pan to soak up the juices. We had this with some steamed broccoli, which is neither pictured nor essential, and some Red Wine, which isn't pictured but was essential. On the second day, the mint and coriander were really making their presence felt and really working with the Chilli.

These were some good Lamb Meatballs.

Make it Mint

Mint is a new herb to me, being largely associated with the mint source to go with slices of Lamb at my grandma's house. Untill recently I never really understood how it works in a context that doesn't have Lamb on it.

Here's what I know now:

Mint, Coriander, Cashew Nuts and Chili's

• Take a small handful of fresh mint leaves, and small handful of fresh Coriander leaves and rip them up.
• Take a large Red Chilli and slice it into thin rings. Get rid of the seeds.
• Take a small handful of Cashew nuts and toast them up for a minute or so in a pan.

These four ingredients should be smashed together in a pestle and mortar, with a shake of Turmeric or Paprika, though not so far that the nuts become dust.


Now then, this can either be sprinked dry, more less as it is, but it's probably going to be better if you add a little bit of nut oil and a bit of soy sauce to make a paste or dressing.

So I need to put this on some actual food, or eat it off a spoon or what?

Well you can clearly use this as a nice dressing to add to a salad involving leaves, tomato, sliced spring onion and/or couscous and feta. You can call that done, you call that a victory.
 

That's a salad.

Where is Paul and what have you done with him?

Or we can do this properly: get your griddle or frying pan good and hot while you sprinkle some crushed black pepper and rub some oil onto a piece of sirloin or rump (or whatever) Steak - not a huge piece, but certainly as thick as your thumb. This recipe will be equally fine and maybe even better, with a small but again thickish Tuna steak from the Fish Quay.

Once your pan is hot, press the steak onto it. There will be smoke, so if you can open a window, turn on the extractor fan and close the door to any room you don't want to smell like beef, that would be a great idea. If you happen to have some Teriyaki, Hoisin or more soy to hand, you can pour a bit of this onto the streak before you turn it over. It'll make the edges a bit sticky and/or caramelised when you slice it. It'll make a lot more smoke.

After two minues, the steak should be griddled on one side now, turn it over for another two or three minutes. Not much more than that. If you've got good salt, sprinkle some on the cooked side now.

If there is fat around the edges make sure this gets pressed right down into the heat.

After absolutely no more than six minutes in total, get the steak onto a chopping board and leave it for two or three more minutes: if you do this the insides should still be nicely pink, but shouldn't bleed when you slice it into the thinnest strips your sharpest knife willl allow.

Place the strips onto a salad involving leaves, tomato, sliced spring onions. Pour the Mint, Coriander, Turmeric, and Chilli's on top, either dry or as a paste with some oil and soy, like I said.

You have now won.