This dish is a wonderful mix of sweet and a little savory.  The spices blend with the sweet fruit for a delectable mix of new!  It also happens to be a fairly easy dish and I had all the ingredients on hand…but don’t let the easy part stop you from trying this dish!

Muruziyab:

Tajine Lamb and Sweet Plums

Translation:

One and half ratls of meat, four uiqiyahs of prunes, a half ratl of onions, the weight of half and a quarter dirhams of saffron, and two and a half uqiyahs of raisins, and four uqiyahs of good quality wine vinegar in a pot large enough.  Boil the meat without spices.  When it is done, add the measure of a ratl and a half of water.  When the water boils, wash the onions cut them….Add them to this meat and leave to boil, letting the onions cook part way.  Then add to the pot the prunes which were soaked in water; raisins and jubjubes done in the same manner.  Leave to cook until the prunes and raisins sweeten.  If you wish, add three uqiyahs of sugar to the mixture after it comes to a boil. Dilute the saffron and add it.  When it comes to a hard boil, throw mint in it and atraf al-tib and lower the heat. (Kanz al-Fawd’id fi Tanwi al-Mawa’id/Salloum, pp. 49)

Ingredients:

1 ½ lbs lamb (or beef or chicken)

1 onion

1 pinch saffron

½ C dried prunes

1 Tbs jujubes

½ C raisons

4 tbs balsamic vinegar

1 Tbs dried mint

½ C honey or sugar.

Redaction:

Gather everything together.

Soak the raisons and prunes in warm water or a sweet wine.

Add the meat to water.  Don’t drown the meat.  Use just enough water to cover.  Here I’ve used lamb neck bones.  I get a slightly fatty meat with excellent marrow.  This is not a standard cut of meat but one that should be tried occasionally for tender and very tasty!

Next boil the meat until done and the water had reduced by half.  Add the chopped onions.

And a little of the vinegar.

Next, while the onions are cooking with the meat, drain the prunes, raisons and jujubes.

Her you can see I have each ingredient in it’s own bowl covered in water.  Drain the plums and raisins but hold the jujubes back for a moment.

A close up of the jujubes.  Either before or after you’ve soaked them, squish the jujubes a little.  Don’t turn them into paste but do flatten them enough the skin breaks and they are no longer round.

Add the prunes, raisons and squished jujubes to the pot.

Next add the spices and saffron.

Here is a good picture pre-cooking.

Add in the basalmic vinegar and saffron.  Taste.  If the taste is a bit sour add sugar or honey till it is a just sweet enough.

Yeah…I added a bit…of honey to the lamb.  I like mine sweet!  Don’t judge.  If salt is needed add a pinch.

This is fork tender and so very very tasty.  You can serve this with rice or carrots or cabbage and you wouldn’t be wrong.  You may want to make a slightly larger pot then intended as this dish goes fast!

With cold weather setting in once again, (funny how the seasons work and all that!) I thought now would be the time to add a warm sweet dish that is redolent of spices fruit and meat.

Mishmish Yabis

(Meat with Dried Apricots)

Translations:

Chop meat in small pieces and boil.  Put the broth aside.  Cook the onions, fresh coriander, and spices until limp and until the meat browns and changes color and the onions have shrunk.  Then take dried sweet-kernelled apricots and wash them in hot water for a while just until the pits can be easily removed with out damaging the apricots.  Arrange them on the fried meat and add enough broth to cover them.  Turn over every once in a while in order that the apricots are cooked very well.  When they are cooked, add honey and lemon juice.  If sour grape juice is available it is better then lemon juice because its aftertaste is distinct and sweet.  Cook it until its broth has dried up.  Add to it mint and fresh coriander.  If lemon juice is not used then replace it with the sour grape juice to make it more potent.  Add finely pounded spices, mint, fresh coriander and onions.  Cook, simmer, and spoon into a serving bowl and sprinkle on its both dried and chopped fresh coriander.  If dry apricot paste is available, the king made in Byzantium or in Medina, this is better then (sweet-kernelled) apricots.  (Ibn al-‘Adim, Kitab al-Wuslah ila al-Habib fi Wasf al-Tayyibat wa al-Tib/Salloum, pp. 80-81)

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken (beef or lamb)   3-4 C broth (enough to cover)    2 tbs olive oil

1 onion    ½ C honey   2 tbs coriander   1 pinch saffron  1 tsp cumin  1 tsp ginger  2 tbs mint

¼ C lemon juice  2/3 C apricots

Optional:

1 C sweet wine (red or white)

Redaction:

First things first, gather up all your ingredients.

Set your apricots in warm water (or wine) until they are soft and pliable.

Next take your meat of preference, here I used chicken thighs, pour the broth into a pot and add the meat  Then boil for 10 minutes, just enough to lock in juices.

As you can see this is not broth but a sweet red wine.  I was feeling very Persian when I was cooking this.

Drain the meat form the broth and set the broth to the side.

In a pan, add olive oil, chopped onion, spices and meat.

Here I used dried coriander as fresh was not available.  If you have, fresh used that, if not dried will work.

Let the meat brown.

While the meat, onions and spices are browning, drain your apricots and add them to the pan.

Then add the lemon juice, honey and 1 C off the reserved broth.

Allow these to simmer until the broth is mostly cooked away.  Towards the end (before all the broth has simmered away) add in more mint and coriander.  Take a taste.  If you need a little more honey add a spoonful or two.  If you need a pinch of salt don’t hesitate to add just a touch.  This is to your taste.  Make it good!

This is a great dish either own it’s own or over cardamom rice.  Take a bite, it is soooo good!

Maghmum: the Veiled or Covered One. Zesty Almond and Chicken Pie

Take a cleaned chicken and put it, as is, whole, with its breast split, in a pot with salt, oil, black pepper and dried coriander and a small onion.  Cook half way.  Then, then take it out and put it in another pot and put on it its broth, macerated (naqui) murri, saffron, rue, thyme and citron leaves. Put in its cavity a lime.  Scatter over it peeled almonds and cover the top of the pot with dough.  Place it in the oven until it is cooked, then use.

(al-Tujibi, Fadalah al-Khiwan fi Tayyibat al-ta’am wa a;-A;wan/Saaloum, pg. 109.)

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken or Chicken thighs

1 tsp salt

3 Tbs oil

1 tsp crushed black pepper

1 tsp dried coriander or 1 Tbs dried cilantro leaves

1 sm onion chopped

1 C chicken broth

½ tsp fish sauce

1 pinch saffron

1 tsp thyme

1 handful citron or kafir lime leaves with the center vein pulled out

1 lime quartered

½ cup chopped or sliced almonds

1 pie crust:

2 C flour

1 1/3 stick of butter

¼ C CHILLED water

½ tsp salt

Redaction:

I had to change this slightly.  Instead of using a whole chicken, I used chicken thighs because it’s a small household and I am not feeding 15.  I will explain how use this recipe with a whole chicken as we go, but don’t be worried if you only see chicken thighs in the pictures.

First, I gathered all the ingredients together for frying.

I poured the oil into a pan,

Get the oil to a good temperature (dribble a couple drops of water into the oil, when it sizzles the oil is ready).  Then I liberally applied salt, pepper and dried cilantro leaves (or if you prefer ground coriander…same plant different name).

The dried cilantro leaves aren’t as potent as the ground coriander.  Dried leaves take up more room then ground, so you need a little more dried leaves then of the ground spice.

Once the chicken was thoroughly coated, I placed the chicken into the frying pan, turning every 3-5 minutes.  If you are using a whole chicken, cut the chicken in half, coat as you would the thighs and brown the same way.  You just have one very large piece to turn instead of several smaller pieces.

Once the chicken has browned and partially cooked, pull from the pan and place the piece(s) on a plate.  Next, fry up the chopped onion in the spiced chicken broth and oil until translucent.  Place to the side.

Pull out a Dutch oven or a large clay-baking dish.  Lightly oil the bottom and place the lime quarters (or if you prefer rounds) in the dish.

Mix the broth, fish sauce, saffron, thyme and kafir leaves together.

Put half the mixture over the lime wedges, then put the chicken thighs (or the whole chicken) over them.  Sprinkle the remaining spices over the chicken.

Over this place the almonds,

Yeah, here I added almost a whole cup of chopped almonds.  You really don’t want this many almonds.  It’s yummy crunchy fun, but a full cup is waaaay to much.  Scale down to about 1/2 or 1/4 depending on preference.

Then the pie crust.

Next add small vents for the steam to escape from.

This dish will be incredibly lime and chicken flavor.

Here is the dish after pulling (messily) from my clay baking dish with Roman Carrots and a spinach and barely salad.  The meat, is tender and so many flavors you would almost swear there is an opera going on in your mouth.  The other flavors are the back up singer to this glorious dish!