Monday, September 17, 2012

Experimental Cookery 2012: Lamb, Chickpea, and Pear Tagine

This one came from Lorraine Pascale's "Home Cooking Made Easy". It was the combination of the lamb and the pears that persuaded me to give it a try - that's an intriguing combination, is it not?

(Incidentally, it's technically not a "tagine". According to my sauces (my advisers in all culinary matters), a tagine is named for a special pot in which the dish is cooked. This meal was cooked in the same large pot I use for everything else, making it... something else. But not a tagine.)

The meal was easy to prepare - chop everything, coat the lamb, brown the lamb, add the rest, cook for 5, simmer, add the pears, and simmer again. See, easy! It was also quite quick to prepare, although the two simmer steps were an hour, and then fifteen minutes, in duration. The result was enough food for six meals. Oh, and it was served with couscous.

So, how was it?

Well, sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment. The meal had plenty of flavour, but I'm not entirely convinced it was a flavour I particularly liked. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it was just... meh.

I'm now going to have to take a little break from the Experimental Cookery for a while - our freezer is now full to overflowing with food, and we'll need to spend some time eating down our stocks before I can do anything more. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to it before the end of the year. (Or world, whichever comes first.)

#34: "Pyramids", by Terry Pratchett

1 comment:

Philip said...

I cooked this for friends last night - I've cooked a "fruity lamb tagine" before from bbd good food which is very tasty but fancied a change - I also liked the idea of adding pears.

Have to say I was very disappointed with the flavour - or lack of it. I usually use ras-el hanout which is very aromatic and spicy and I just found this blend lacking. I also didn't feel the pears added anything to the dish at all - maybe my choice of pears (conference) was the wrong one.

So I wouldn't actually do this dish again - shame as I really like Lorraine's tv programmes and books - but this was the first recipe I have actually tried from her book so overall I am a bit disappointed.