Gluten Free Moroccan Tagine with Saffron Rice

I recently went to Herbies in Rozelle here in Sydney for a Herb Appreciation Course.  This course was fantastic.  It introduces you to the best fresh herbs available and their history, origins and the ideal ways to buy them.

A spice blend we were shown in class was Super Ras el Hanout.

This is a spice blend that contains over thirty herbs and spices and it is delicious.  Each spice merchant in souks across Morocco has their own spice blend that they sell.  Herbies has two, the one I am using is an anniversary blend.

I prepared it in a beef tagine with a few vegetables and tinned tomatoes letting it cook for several hours in a slow cooker.  I find that cooking meals the day or evening before in a slow cooker is a great way to  get ahead.  Whilst it is not recommended to leave the slow cooker unattended whilst on, I do, overnight letting the meal cook and then cool.  Pop it in the fridge when you get up in the morning - easy.

This tagine I put on to cook early evening before starting dinner preparation for that night.

Beef and Tomato Tagine with Super Ras el Hanout 

600g gravy beef, diced
half an onion diced
half a leek sliced
1 stick of celery, diced
1 carrot diced
a glug of olive oil
1/4 pumpkin, peeled and diced
4 small potatoes diced
400g diced tomatoes
4 teaspoons of spice blend Super Ras el Hanout
1 cup of vegetable stock

Heat a glug of olive oil in a pan and saute the vegetables for a few minutes until soft.  Tip the vegetables out of the pan into the slow cooker.  Brown the meat, sprinkling half of the spice blend through the meat.  Once browned add the meat to the slow cooker.

Place the peeled and diced pumpkin potatoes and the remaining spice in the slow cooker.  Add the tomatoes and stock and let this simmer for up to four hours to allow the meat to become tender and melt in the mouth.

Serve re-heated with rice or the Saffron Pilau as suggested, recipe below.

Saffron Pilau from Margret Fulton's Encyclopaedia of Cookery

This rice dish is one that my mother would make and I have very fond memories of the smell of the spices, inparticular the saffron cooking and infusing the most delicious flavour into the rice.  The second I smelt the delicious saffron in the spice class I was transported back twenty plus years to the memory of this rice dish.

3 tbs olive oil
2 onions, finely diced
1/2 tsp crumbled saffron threads
2 cups of long grain rice
3 1/2 cups boiling stock - I use a gluten free vegetable stock powder
8 black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
4 cardamon pods, bruised
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
2 tbs salt
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup almond slivers toasted

Heat oil in a heavy saucepan and gently fry onions until a pale golden colour.  Make sure the onions are soft but do not allow to burn - this will take a while.

Add the saffron and cook for one minute, stirring.  Add the rice and fry gently stirring for five minutes until all rice is coated and golden.  Add 1 3/4 cups of boiling stock with peppercorns, cloves, cardamon, cinnamon and salt.  Bring to the boil then cover and simmer gently for 20-25 minutes or until the rice is tender, adding more stock as required.

Add the sultanas, cover and let them plump.  Turn off the heat and keep covered until ready to be served.  Add the almonds at the last minute before serving.


monica@loveglutenfreeaustralia