Tangia

Lamb sealed in a tall urn and left upright in low heat for six hours with nothing to stir and no vegetables in it at all.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg lamb shank or shoulder, in large pieces on the bone
• 1 whole head of garlic, cloves peeled
• 1 preserved lemon, as on its own page
• 2 tablespoons smen or softened butter
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• a generous pinch of saffron
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 100 ml water
• greaseproof paper and string, or foil

Method

1. IT STANDS UPRIGHT AND IS NEVER TOUCHED, which is the whole difference from the tagine on this site. That one is a shallow dish with a cone, layered with vegetables, cooked where you can see it and finished by reducing the sauce. This is a tall sealed urn that goes into low even heat and comes out six hours later. Nothing is stirred, nothing is added, nothing is checked, and there are no vegetables in it at all.
2. SO EVERYTHING GOES IN COLD AND RAW. No browning, no softening of onions -- there are no onions. Meat, garlic, fat, spice and a little water, and the lid goes on.
3. THE LIQUID IS WHAT COMES OUT OF THE MEAT. A hundred millilitres is all that goes in, and after six hours there will be several times that. Filled with stock it becomes a lamb soup and the point is lost.
4. SMEN IS PRESERVED BUTTER and it is what this tastes of. Softened butter is the honest substitute and the page says so rather than pretending otherwise; it will be milder.
5. Saffron crumbled into a tablespoon of warm water, steeped 10 minutes.
6. Lamb in large pieces, bone in, into a tall heavy pot or a deep casserole -- the taller and narrower the better.
7. Garlic cloves whole, the preserved lemon quartered with the flesh scraped out and discarded and the peel rinsed, the smen, all the spices, the saffron and its water, the salt and pepper.
8. The 100 ml of water poured down the side.
9. Everything turned over ONCE with the hands so the meat is coated. That is the only time it is handled.
10. The pot sealed: greaseproof paper over the top, tied with string, then the lid, or two layers of foil crimped hard. It must not breathe.
11. Into a 140C oven for 6 HOURS. Not opened, not checked, not turned. A slow cooker on low for eight hours does the same job.
12. Out, and rested 20 minutes still sealed.
13. Opened at the table. The meat will be falling off the bone and sitting in a dark, intensely savoury liquid. Served with bread, with cumin and salt on the side to dip.

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