Mrouzia

Lamb cooked down with honey and raisins until the sauce is a glaze, sweet enough that it once kept without refrigeration.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg lamb shoulder, in large pieces on the bone
• 3 tablespoons ras el hanout
• 200 g raisins
• 200 g honey
• 150 g blanched almonds
• 100 g butter
• 2 onions, grated
• a generous pinch of saffron
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 400 ml water

Method

1. THE HONEY GOES IN AT THE END AND NOT THE BEGINNING. Two hundred grams of it in the pot from the start will catch and burn on the base long before the lamb is tender, and a scorched sugar note runs through the whole dish. The meat is cooked first in spice and water; the honey comes in for the last forty minutes and reduces to a glaze.
2. AND IT IS MEANT TO BE PROPERLY SWEET. Anyone pulling the honey back to a respectable spoonful has made an ordinary spiced lamb. The sweetness is the point -- the sugar is what let this keep in a warm climate -- and it sits against the ras el hanout rather than hiding it.
3. RAISINS GO IN SOAKED, not dry. Dry fruit pulls liquid out of the sauce and stays leathery; soaked in warm water 20 minutes it plumps and stays plump.
4. Raisins soaked in warm water 20 minutes and drained.
5. Saffron steeped in a spoonful of warm water.
6. Almonds fried gently in a little of the butter until golden, then lifted out and set aside.
7. Lamb, grated onion, ras el hanout, ginger, cinnamon sticks, saffron, salt and the rest of the butter into a heavy pot.
8. Turned over to coat, then the water added and brought to a bare simmer.
9. Lid on, 2 hours, until the lamb is very tender. Checked once; topped up with a little hot water only if it threatens to catch.
10. The lid off and the liquid reduced for 10 minutes.
11. NOW the honey and the drained raisins. Stirred through gently and cooked UNCOVERED 30 to 40 minutes over a low heat.
12. Watched and turned every 10 minutes from this point. It goes from sauce to glaze quickly at the end and will catch if left.
13. It is ready when the sauce coats the meat in a dark sticky layer and there is almost no free liquid.
14. Almonds scattered over. Served with bread and nothing else sweet.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Morocco · All recipes