With the prospect of a cold weekend ahead what better way to warm up than making and eating this delicious lamb tagine? Our recipe can be made ahead of time and simply finished in minutes by re-heating and adding boiling water to the cous-cous dry mix.

Recipe - Lamb Tagine with Cous Cous

Ingredients

500g boneless Derbyshire lamb - we use shoulder meat
350ml - 500ml stock - a good old meat stock cube will do but we use chicken stock made by simply simmering chicken wings covered in water for 45 minutes
Olive oil
100g dried apricots
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1-2 tsp Your favourite spice mix - we grind up cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric
salt and pepper
Freshly chopped leaf coriander and mint to serve along with seeds from a pomegranate

Method
Fry the lamb in the oil whilst soaking the apricots in some of the warmed stock. Once the lamb is nicely browned put to one side and soften the onion, ginger and garlic in the pan residues adding the spices after 5 minutes. Toast these for another minute or so and add the stock, scrapping the bottom of the pan to preserve all the flavour.
Add the lamb and apricots back and after seasoning with salt and pepper simmer for at least an hour or until the lamb is tender. The liquid should reduce but please top up if getting too dry. Once complete the tagine can be chilled for later re-heating. For more sauce we sometimes add more stock and then thicken to taste with cornflour - not traditional but the extra sauce is always a bonus.

For the cous cous we add some dried vegetable stock to the dry cous cous along with dried herbs and seasoning. Its then simple when ever you are ready to serve to cover with boiling water. It simply need fluffing up with a fork and is ready to serve.

For presentation a traditional tagine dish is ideal but it tastes just as good from a plate! Enjoy.