Although Moroccans prefer to use a tagine made of clay that is better in taste and is also healthy, most Moroccan chefs prepare this dish in a pressure cooker to speed up the cooking process. You can choose the best and most appropriate method for you.
Cooking on the tagine takes a long time, while the pressure cooker takes less time and is faster.
The dish of meat and dried prunes tagine is always present in Moroccan weddings and celebrations as the principal plate.
Ingredients:
- 1/2kg of beef or lamb
- Large onion, finely chopped
- A bunch of coriander and parsley, cut into small pieces
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- teaspoon black pepper
- tablespoon ginger
- 1/2 a teaspoon of turmeric
- salt to taste
- One teaspoon of saffron “can be replaced with food coloring”
Decorating components:
- 50g prunes
- 50g fried almond
- teaspoon cinnamon
- a big spoon of sugar
- A big spoon blossom water
Method of preparing:
Using the manual pestle or what is called in Morocco the MEHRAZ, we put the parsley, coriander, garlic, and salt, and we crush it until it becomes soft and mixed.
Put the parsley and garlic mixture in a bowl, then add the other spices ( black pepper, ginger, saffron, and turmeric) and mix all together well.
In the pressure cooker, we add the onions, oil, meat, and the seasoning that we made, add two tablespoons of water, and mix everything on low heat, until all the ingredients are fried the onions become very soft and the water we added disappears and only the oil remains, of course with constant stirring so that the ingredients do not stick.
Then we add enough water until it covers the meat completely, we close the pressure cooker well, turn the fire to medium, and leave it on the fire until the meat is cooked and the water decreases, knowing that the water is less, the cooker must be moved from time to time, we just feel that the water has become less, we open the pressure cooker And we make sure that the meat becomes soft, it takes about an hour to cook the meat, depending on the quality of the meat.
If the meat is not tender, you can add a small amount of water and close the pot again until the meat is well cooked.
The important thing is that after the meat becomes soft, we leave the pot on low heat until the meat is fried the broth becomes very sour and the onions become dark brown, so we turn off the fire. In the sense that the onions become honeyed, a large amount of broth should not be left, because the basis of the deliciousness of the Moroccan tagine in its broth is that it becomes very heavy. The broth should be tasted to check for salt, if it needs salt it should be added.
In a cooking pot, add the dried plums and water to it, and leave it on medium heat until it is cooked and the water has reduced. Do not add a large amount of water because the plums ripen quickly.
After it is cooked and the water becomes a little, add sugar, cinnamon, and blossom water, and stir the mixture until it becomes a very heavy broth and a dark brown color, we turn off the fire.
In a serving dish (tagine) if you don’t have one you can serve it in any dish, put the meat and broth, then decorate it with almonds, prunes, honey, and boiled eggs. We offer it in good health.
Note: The dish must be served hot with Moroccan bread, also optional boiled eggs are not necessary, only give a distinctive taste.
You can sprinkle prunes with sesame, it gives a wonderful look and taste.
