11 May 2013

* Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine

Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine Recipe
I JUST BOUGHT A SLOW COOKER!!! Oh yes I did. I've been rebelling against this one purchase for yeeeeaars. Rebelling. Truly.

I love cooking gadgets and cooking gimmicks but until recently, a slow cooker/crock pot was at the bottom of my list. Purely because I honestly believed the only thing you could cook in it, was Chicken Chasseur.... This is because as kids, whenever we saw that mum had got the crock pot out, we knew it was chicken chasseur for dinner, and don't ask me why, but we'd spend the whole day dreading it. Possibly because mum got the crock pot out A LOT. I think we ate almost as much chasseur as we did bolognese!

I no longer have an aversion to chicken chasseur, and have in fact, included a recipe for it within the walls of this blog - however, up until recently I've had no designs on owning a slow cooker. None whatsoever. That's until I started up this blog in an endeavour to make our food a tad more interesting for us to eat - we'd fallen into a food rut. Since starting Abbe's Cooking Antics, I've spent a lot more time surfing the net, looking at what people are cooking and eating, and I had no clue that there were quite so many things that you could cook in a slow cooker... cheesecake for example (really?!?).

So, I gots me a slow cooker to slowly cook stuff in and what do I do? I don't cook a slow cooker recipe... meh... too easy... I adapt a stove top recipe that I've never actually cooked before. There's a time adapter/conversion thingy at netmums.com that converts times of oven/stove top based recipes to slow cooker temperatures and times. Brilliant.

Coincidentally, Genie at Bunny Eats Design, has invited me to join in a monthly link up party - Our Growing Edge - designed to connect food bloggers and challenge/inspire them to try new things and share the end results. I think this is an amazing idea, especially for someone like me that occasionally needs a push to experiment. I really can be quite lazy when it comes to trying new stuff. I do tend to stick with what I know works! This month's link up is hosted by Sonya at and more food and the recipe I'm submitting for it - is this one because...

It was lush.

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Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine Recipe

Serves 4

Prep time - 10 minutes
Cooking time - 6hrs (or thereabouts)
Total time - 6 - 7 hrs

You will need
A slow cooker (ha ha)

Ingredients
450g/1lb lean lamb mince
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 heaped tbsp plain flour (gluten free flour works fine here)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
300 ml/7 fl oz hot lamb stock
1 tbsp runny honey
1 x 400g/14oz can chick peas, drained
Salt and freshly milled black pepper
100g/4oz ready to eat apricots , halved (or chopped if you're trying to hide them from your hubby)
2 large handfuls baby spinach - chopped (optional)

Method
Quickly dry fry the lamb mince in a non stick pan, drain off the excess fat and spoon into the slow cooker. Add the onion, flour and spices and stir to coat the meat. Then pour in the stock, honey, chickpeas and seasoning and give it all a good stir.

Cook on low for about 5 hours.

Add the apricots and cook for a further hour, stir in the spinach (if using) and allow it to wilt - this takes about 2 minutes, if that, before serving with Lemon and Parsley Couscous.

EAT

Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine Recipe

Recipe adapted for slow cooker (and us) from Simply Beef and Lamb

NOTE: I added the chickpeas at the beginning because I like mine to be a bit more butter than bullet. If you like your chickpeas to feel like little lumps of lead, add them half way through instead.

30 comments :

  1. It may just be my utter lack of sleep, but I cannot stop giggling over your phrases "more butter than bullet" and "little lumps of lead".

    Seriously. I'm giggling like a preteen over pictures of Justin Bieber.

    Okay. Now, I'm nauseated. No more giggles.

    Whew! Thank goodness for the Biebster, right?!

    Anyhoo...I have a feeling that if I made enough for my whole family, the kids won't touch it. I'm definitely going to give it a try, though! I'll use my smaller slow cooker and half the recipe for just me and my husband . . . which, now that I think of it, pretty much guarantees that all four kids will take one whiff of this and want to devour it for themselves.

    ~sigh~

    ReplyDelete
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    1. It has to be your lack of sleep ;-) Please tell me you're being sarcastic when mentioning drooling over Bieber. I may have to ban you if not!

      My boy wouldn't eat this either, Kelly - so I froze half down for a rainy "can't be arsed" day... of which there are many <:O

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    2. Definitely sarcastic. Bieber makes me want to vomit . . . no matter how pretty a girl he may be. ;-)

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    3. Wanted to drop back in -- again -- to let you know that I've nominated you for an award! Come by for a visit & check it out!

      http://dysfunctionallyfun.blogspot.com/2013/05/awesomesauce-award-shitty-day-this-post.html

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    4. I'm so glad you were being sarcastic about Bieber, my bum shut with fear when I thought you were serious ;-)

      And thankyou, very, very much for nominating me for an award. I actually have no clue what to say - which is new :O xx

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  2. This looks gorgeous, I too recently gave in to the lure of the slow cooker after seeing one too many yummy recipes on Pinterest, and am now permanently on the hunt for 'chuck it all in there and leave it' recipes so I can justify the amount of space it takes up in the kitchen! Thanks for doing all the hard work with the adapting and sharing.

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    1. Thanks, Grace! I've been mucking about with it for a couple of weeks now, and though I've had a few successes I've also had a couple of *meh, it was edible* meals too ;-)

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  3. Thanks for your submission to Our Growing Edge. I just got a slow cooker this weekend too! I'm looking forward to a winter of slow cooked recipes. I think a little push to experiment benefits all of us. As long as it isn't stressful of course. I love tasting new things and if I can share and read about others doing the same, it's a win win.

    Isn't it interesting that foods you grew up with can turn you off or make you love something for life? Though I never remembered my parents using a slow cooker while growing up, I love the idea of one, especially the idea of coming home after work in winter, when it gets dark far too early and having dinner ready and waiting. Moroccan Lamb Tangine sounds like a very exotic meal that could be eaten any time of year. Lamb mince here is very fatty and I'm not sure I can get lean stuff unless I ground it myself. Would this recipe be just as good with chunky lamb pieces?

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    1. I'm pretty sure it would, Genie. My issue is the opposite, we can't really get hold of lamb at a price I'm willing to pay. The supermarket that I buy my lamb mince from sells most meat at half it's usual price and currently it only stocks lamb mince and chops.

      I should probably have mentioned the fact that EVERYTHING my mum cooked in the slow cooker, tasted of Chicken Chasseur, for some peculiar reason. I do agree, that it has been sooo good to get dinner on the go when I'm out all day, and come home and just dish it out. Though there have been one or two meals that have ended up in the dog!

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  4. This looks absolutely yummy, Abbe! I wish I still had a slow cooker - mine went kaput months back. Haven't gotten round to getting a new one.

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    1. Thanks, Sharon - I'm still in a bit of a *love hate* relationship with it. Going to try another recipe in it tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed that it's better than my last effort. Though the dog is definitely appreciating the changes ;-)

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  5. Abbe, I must admit that I do not eat lamb very often. However I will say that this dish looks amazingly delicious that I feel an intense need to try this out :) Thanks for sharing this !

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    1. Aaaaw, thankyou Jerry! I don't eat lamb very often either, so it's always nice to try something new when I do ;-)

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  6. I have a rice cooker that can be used as a slow cooker. But I have never tried it and I haven't figured out how to use it. It is just simply sitting in the corner of the kitchen. Your recipe looks fantastic! I think I need to dust off that rice cooker and give this a try. Thanks for sharing! :)

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    1. I hope you enjoy it if you do try it Lokness, and thankyou :o)

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  7. I made this this weekend after trawling the net for easy tagine recipes and it was delicious! Even got my boyfriend eating it and he's suspicious of anything he hasn't tried before, so thank you!

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    1. Thanks, Nic! It's always great to know when a recipe works well for someone else. I'm glad your boyfriend enjoyed it too - I lie to my hubby all the time about what he's eating... works for me ;-)

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  8. hello! and thank you for this lovely entry into this month's our growing edge. I've got it up in my round-up here.

    I don't eat lamb myself - but the partner loves it. I think I might score some points cooking this up for him!

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    1. The *round-up* looks great, Sonya!

      If you do cook this, it freezes really well - we've already eaten the other half of ours ;-)

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  9. Looks great! Do you have to brown the meat first or can you just chuck it all in? Any alternative suggestions to chick peas? Xx

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    1. Hi Anon - I would imagine you could just chuck it all in, but it might be incredibly fatty because you don't then get the opportunity to pour the excess fat off. It only takes a minute, so don't be bloody lazy ;-)

      Ummmm.... alternative to chickpeas.... I suppose you could try virtually any type of bean, but they'd need a lot less cooking so add them very close to the end. About 15 minutes before serving, just to heat them through.

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  10. Is there anything you could substitute in place of the lamb stock? would chicken stock work?

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    1. Hello jharv - yes, chicken stock would work just as well, it's what I would have used if I hadn't had lamb stock available.

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  11. Thank for this recipe. I tried it tonight but with chunks of neck fillet rather than lamb. (My thinking being that Bedouins would not have had mincing machines.)
    My very foody brother told me off for not putting paprika in. Apparently Tagine *needs* paprika! Well I thought it was lovely.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it, Gemma! Perhaps your very foody brother should start his own food blog ;-) xx

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  12. Try this with diced neck fillet instead of the mince, really yummy!!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it! I'll have to try neck fillet myself, though it's bloody expensive!!! ;-) x

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  13. Made this last night Thank you the whole family enjoyed it! I have a 2 yr old and a 1 yr old and getting them to get the same thing isn't always easy so last night was brilliant! xxx

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    1. Bit of a late reply, but I'm glad they enjoyed it :)

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Thanks for dropping in to read my recipes (and ramblings). I love it when you let me know what you think - so please leave a comment and I promise to take the time to reply!

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