Winter tagine with mushrooms, saffron and pomegranate
Asked the other day to nominate my desert island fruit, I barely hesitated before nominating … drum roll … the pomegranate.
Why? Well, for one thing, your life expectancy on the island would probably be longer as a result. The biblical fruit is packed with vitamins A, B and C. It has triple the amount of antioxidants as do my other two desert island items (red wine and green tea) and may help stop the growth of some cancers. It’s good for arthritis, digestion, memory, blood pressure, sports performance ... oh, and even male sexual potency.
Most of all, though, I just relish the tartly juicy taste, and the way its quintessentially Middle Eastern look can be adapted to a galaxy of recipes across all the seasons.
This is an Arab-influenced tagine dish I tend to in the winter, which substitutes mushrooms for the standard chestnuts and which deploys pomegranate seeds as much for their visual warmth as health properties.
The brilliant Scottish food writer Ghillie Basan does something similar in her own tagine books using lamb and chestnuts. Unfortunately, I basically can’t stand chestnuts, which to me taste like the spawns of Satan, and I think beef works better than the lamb for the winter months.
Ingredients
tablespoon of butter and one of olive oil
2 onions super-finely chopped
1-2 small cinnamon sticks
4 garlic cloves finely chopped
thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped or shredded
pinch of saffron threads
About 750g of beef cut into bite-sized pieces
250g mushrooms
1 tablespoon of dark runny honey
lots of seeds of a fresh pomegranate (you really can’t use too much)
small bunch of fresh mint chopped
small bunch of fresh coriander chopped
Method
Heat the butter and oil in the pan, stir in the chopped onions, ginger and garlic and saute until they begin to colour. Add in the saffron, teaspoon of cinnamon and then in the meat.
When there is some deep flavours being given off add enough water to just cover the lot. Scrape the pan down for all the best bits. Put the lot into the tagine and pour over the now flavoured water.
Bring the lot to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for around an hour.
Add the mushrooms, stir in the honey and cover and cook gently for a further thirty minutes, or until the lamb is nice and tender.
Season with salt and plenty of pepper and toss in the pomegranate seeds, some of the mint and coriander and allow to stand off the heat for about 5-10 minutes.
Plate up, and sprinkle the remaining herbs and seeds over the top. Serve with rice and salad. [Serves 4]
