My Tagine...its maiden outing

I've owned this tagine for almost a year. My brother squeezed it into his luggage on his way home from a Moroccan holiday having spent all of €2 on it! I love stews and one pot cooking and I love that the tagine looks cool enough to serve straight to the table. One of the reasons I haven't used it till now was that I didn't think it would work so well on my electric hob and my main oven was broken for much of this year (it's back in action now). To be honest I don't know why I thought that this earthenware pot wouldn't work well on a glass hob, maybe it's just that it looks like something that would be more at home on an open fire. Anyway, I gave it a whirl yesterday and the results were gorgeous. A heavy based saucepan would work just as well.

Beef and Prune Tagine
From Casa Moro by Sam and Sam Clark


Serves 4

Ingredients:

40g unsalted butter

2 tblsp olive oil

1tsp ground ginger

2tsp ground cinnamon

3tblsp grated onion

4tblsp roughly chopped fresh coriander

2 1/2 lbs good quality stewing beef

good sized pinch of saffron infused in 2 tblsp boiling water

400g stoned prunes soaked in cold water

2 tblsp runny honey

Salt and pepper

To serve:

Sesame seeds, toasted

Flaked almonds, toasted

Fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Couscous

Method:
Put the butter and olive oil in the tagine over a medium high heat. When the butter starts to foam add the ginger, half a teaspoon black pepper, cinnamon, grated onion and chopped coriander.

Fry for 30seconds, then add the beef and stir for a 1-2minutes until all the meat is well coated in the spice mixture.

Cover the meat with water and the saffron infusion, bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.

Add half of the prunes, drained, cover and cook for one hour and a half.

Add the remaining prunes, the honey and some salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking for another 30minutes until the meat is tender and the liquid has thickened and reduced.

Serve with couscous and the toasted sesame seeds. almonds and coriander scattered on top.
Really delicious!