Lamb Tagine with Honeyed Pumpkin

When I told people about the amazing lamb tagine recipe I had made this weekend which, in my usual fashion, I described as "easy if you've got a spare four hours to potter around the house while it cooks", a lot of people gave me sceptical looks.  "Don't you need a special pot for that?" they asked.  "Four hours, that sounds complicated."  But here's the thing - other than the investment of time waiting while it simmers, a tagine is really just a yummy stew.

It's not that difficult, honest, and you can do it in a cast iron casserole pot!  No fancy tagine required!  It's lovely if you can present the final dish at the table with a flourish of the conical tagine lid, but for the four years before my wonderful mother gave me my first proper tagine pot, I cooked some fabulous tagine dishes in my Le Creuset.

I am a big fan of tagines, as any scan of my blog will show you.  No scratch that, I am a big fan of Moroccan cuisine and what's not to love about a tagine?  You add ingredients and liquid, set it at a low simmer and wait.  A fancy stew by any other name.

Now, this tagine is a slightly more complicated version in four ways.  Firstly, you have to grate half the onion instead of simply dicing it.  Secondly, halfway through the simmer you have to add some ingredients.  Thirdly, you have to grate a butternut pumpkin and cook it down to a deliciously caramelised mush and, finally, you have to bake the tagine in the oven for the last 40 minutes.  That's it.  So if you have a lazy afternoon of chores (or DVD watching) in mind and you want to really impress your guests, this is the dish.  (If you're looking for a slightly simpler version, try my Lamb Tagine with Dates & Dried Figs recipe...)

Before I move onto the recipe, I would just like to add that this wonderful Paula Wolfert recipe has been (mildly) adapted from her "The Food of Morocco" cookbook, which I highly recommend to you if you have the slightest interest in Moroccan cuisine.

I'd also like to note that all the phaffing about with setting up your food processor to speed-grate the onions and pumpkin was totally worth the effort.  I do love using the odd kitchen power tool and the final dish was incredible.  The lamb was melt-in-your-mouth tender, the pumpkin added a hint of sweetness without being too much and blended beautifully with Wolfert's spice mix - cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, pepper - and, of course, saffron.  Please give it a go one rainy afternoon.

Lamb Tagine with Honeyed Pumpkin

Ingredients
-  1 kilogram diced lamb shoulder
-  1 whole medium-sized butternut pumpkin (squash to our American cousins)
-  1 large onion, grated
-  2 medium onions, sliced into rings
-  1 pinch of saffron, soaked in 1/4 cup hot water
-  Salt and pepper for seasoning
-  2 teaspoons spice mix:  1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon ground turmeric, 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, pinch of ground (or freshly grated) nutmeg
-  2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
-  Pinch of ground cinnamon
-  Pinch of ground ginger
-  2 tablespoons honey, preferably floral for example acacia or orange blossom
-  2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts for garnish (I forgot to add these, but had them with the leftovers - yum!)

First things first.  Toast your pine nuts - you can do this in a nice hot frypan (no oil necessary) or, as I do, in a glass bowl in the microwave 1 minute at a time on high.  Keep an eye on them, no matter what method you use, they turn toasty brown in an instant and then black in quick succession!

Next, mix up your spice mix in a bowl, ready to use.  Then soak your saffron in hot water in a separate bowl.  Set these aside.

Now, slice up your two medium onions into thin rings for later.  Slice and peel the butternut pumpkin, discarding the seeds and pulp in the centre, and peel and halve your onion.  This is the point where, if you have one, I highly recommend you set up your food processor with the grating blade.  You could hand grate your pumpkin and onion but it will take a lot more effort than washing up your food processor... and more than a few onion-related tears, I am guessing.

Grate your onion, set aside.  Then grate your pumpkin and pop it in a colander over a bowl with a sprinkling of flaked or coarse salt (eg Maldon) to help make the pumpkin sweat a little.  Leave it alone while you get to work on the lamb.

Put your tagine or cast iron casserole pot on a low heat on your stove and add 2 teaspoons of butter.  When it has melted, add the grated onion and 1.5 tablespoons of your spice mix and stir until combined - it will turn a wonderful orange-brown colour.  Next, add in the lamb, your saffron and the water you've soaked it in, and another 1/2 cup water (should be enough to cover the about two-thirds of the lamb).  Stir to combine, cover with the lid and leave to simmer on a low heat for 1.5 hours.  This is the time to put on a DVD or do some household chores.  Just make sure it stays on a very low simmer.

When the 1.5 hours have passed, add the sliced onions to the lamb and stir.   Cover again and continue to cook for another 1.5 hours.  Now, don't just run off and pop on another movie - in about 45 minutes you'll need to deal with that grated pumpkin.

Take your grated pumpkin and rinse under the tap.  Now, squeeze the water out of the pumpkin into a bowl.  Reserve about 2 tablespoons of the liquid and discard the rest.  It should be tinted a beautiful orange colour.

Set a heavy-bottomed frypan on your stove and add the grated pumpkin, the 2 tablespoon of reserved liquid, a pinch of ground cinnamon and ginger and cook on a low heat for approximately 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.  This should look something like "jam" according to the recipe.  I thought it looked more like a sticky mash pumpkin!  Now, preheat your oven to 210 degrees Celcius and take your tagine off the heat.

Transfer half the liquid from your tagine into your honeyed pumpkin and stir in.  Spoon the pumpkin mash over the top of your tagine and smooth the top - it's like a Moroccan shepherds pie!  Stud the top of the dish with the left over 1 tablespoon of butter and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the pumpkin top is caramelised and crisped (but not burned).

To serve, sprinkled the pinenuts on top and serve with a flourish of your conical tagine lid at the table.

I should note that I forgot to sprinkle the pinenuts over the final dish on the night when I served this to a bunch of appreciative friends, but they seem not to have been that bothered by it.  However, I did try the leftovers with pinenuts and it really does add something.  So don't forget them!  Oh, and that's my sweet potato mash on the plate - a pretty amazing combination.

Pumpkin and Sweetcorn Soup

If you're looking for a fragrant spin on a classic dish with a tight budget, then you're looking for this recipe.  The soup has a smooth and creamy texture - with no cream required - and freezes beautifully for lunches throughout the week.

The small can of light coconut cream I have used can be omitted if you want to keep it simple, but do try it the first time as even a small amount of coconut cream gives the soup a spicy fragrance that elevates this recipe well beyond the standard pumpkin soup.  If you want to enhance the Thai flavours further, add a tablespoon of red curry paste when you soften the onions at the beginning of the recipe.

The sweetcorn was a moment of genius - I added it because corn was ridiculously cheap at the market on the weekend, and I couldn't resist a great deal.  The corn really enhances the butternut pumpkin's sweetness while adding a thicker texture to the soup that makes it very filling.  I used the technique (adding the denuded corn cobs to the stock) from a sweetcorn shot soup recipe that is a standard for me when corn is in season.  I promise to share the recipe for that one with you soon.

The quantity produced will give four adults a very hearty serving (team with crusty bread for a wholesome Sunday night meal) or, in the case of a singleton such as myself, one hearty dinner and about five smaller lunch portions.  Just what a gal saving for a holiday needs in her repertoire!

Pumpkin and Sweeetcorn Soup

Ingredients
- 2 small or 1 large red onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, diced
- 1 kilogram butternut pumpkin, diced
- 1 cup milk
- 270 ml (small) can light coconut cream (optional)
- 2 corn cobs, kernels removed while raw and cobs reserved for the stock
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste

Remove the kernels from the corn cobs by holding the cob vertical on a chopping board and using a knife to slice downwards.  Keep the denuded cobs for the stock.  Now dice your pumpkin into inch thick pieces.

Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a stockpot on a medium-high heat.  Soften the onion and garlic in the oil for around 10 minutes.  Add the pumpkin and corn kernels, and stir over a medium-high heat for around 4 minutes.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of water over the pumpkins, add pinch of salt and a couple of grinds of pepper, then put the lid on the stockpot and leave for ten minutes to sweat.  Check it every so often to ensure it hasn't gone dry, but other than that don't fuss.  This will smell amazing every time you take the lid off.

Pour the stock, milk and coconut cream over the top of the pumpkin and corn.  Submerge the cobs in the liquid.  Stir to mix then bring to the simmer.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover for 30 minutes.

After allowing the soup to cool a little, use a stick blender to make the pumpkin soup silky smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste, blending as you go to make sure the seasoning is evenly distributed.  Serve in large bowls with chopped coriander sprinkled on top or a dollop of sour cream.

If you want to increase the Thai flavours, you should add 1 tablespoon of yellow curry paste to the onions when you soften them with the garlic at the very start of the recipe.

Pumpkin and Hazelnut Ice Cream

About a month ago I went on a holiday to Bali with four of the best friends a girl could have...during which we discovered a little hole-in-the-wall gelateria in Ubud that, amongst an array of other flavours, made an incredible pumpkin and hazelnut gelato. It rocked my world. As a result, the Red Avenger and I were determined to recreate the experience and come up with our own version of the sweet pumpkin and hazelnut ice cream.

I should probably first introduce the Red Avenger - a baker and ice cream making extraordinaire who, when I mentioned my desire to recreate my Bali gelato experience, immediately noted that we'd have to bake the pumpkin to enhance it's sweetness and produce some kind of hazelnut milk using the same technique used for making coconut milk.  Compare this to most reactions to my pumpkin ice cream-making scheme, which varied from "pumpkin in an ice cream - yuck!" to a wrinkling of the nose accompanied by a derogatory comment about American pumpkin pie.  You can see why I was very happy indeed to have a partner in crime who was as experienced in ice cream making (and as enthusiastic about the project) as the Red Avenger.

It also so happened that I was (relatively) newly in possession of a shiny Cuisinart benchtop ice cream maker - this is the kind of machine that has it's own refridgeration unit in-built so (unlike the ever loyal Mr Snowy who has previously featured in my blog posts) you don't need to pop your base in the freezer.  Basically, you can be slightly less organised and still churn out some pretty delicious ice cream in a few hours.  The Cooking Fairy Godmother (my mother) gave me this wonderful beastie when I was suffering through a break-up... you've got to love a woman whose approach is "forget him, make ice cream"!  And she was so right.

Now, just because this baby has it's own freezing system doesn't mean you don't have to be a little organised about making ice cream.  The key to making a good ice cream is to ensure all the liquids are as cold as you can get them before they go into the machine to be churned.  This requires at least three hours in the fridge beforehand.  Personally, I think this makes ice cream perfect for a dinner party - you can prepare the base the night or morning before your guests arrive and pop it in the fridge.  Then churn in the afternoon and you're ready to go with a dessert that needs no last-minute phaffing and invariably impresses anyone you serve it to.  

Pumpkin and Hazelnut Ice Cream

Ingredients

-  900 grams pumpkin (I used Queensland Blue, but Butternut would also be good)
-  1/3 cup dark brown sugar
-  3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used macadamia nut oil)
-  1/4 cup roasted hazelnuts
-  200 grams raw hazelnuts
-  600 ml whipping cream
-  pinch of sea salt
-  1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-  1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
-  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

If you're using an ice cream maker with a base you need to freeze, don't forget to pop it in the freezer the night before you want to churn the ice cream.  The longer it's in the freezer, the better the result!

Preheat your oven to 210 degrees Celcius.  Chop your pumpkin into large chunks, coat in vegetable oil and roast until soft but not too crisp on the outside (mine blackened a little too much, not that it mattered in the end, but you should keep an eye on them).

Leave it to a cool a little but, while still warm, puree the pumpkin in a food processor until smooth.  Place into a large bowl (you'll be mixing the cream into the puree in this bowl later) and add the dark brown sugar, stirring until dissolved.  Cover in cling wrap and pop in the fridge.

Next, clean out your food processor because we are about to use it again.  Pulverise your raw hazelnuts until they become a hazelnut meal, rather like the almond meal you'd use in friands.  Don't cheat and buy pre-ground hazelnut meal - you need this to be done fresh so you get the best flavour transferred into your cream.  I recommend the nut shop at the Fyshwick Markets for nice fresh hazelnuts, both roasted and raw.

This is also a good time to chop up you roasted hazelnuts, which should be reduced to the size of choc-chips in the food processor (not pulverised like the raw hazelnuts).  Set these aside for later use during the churning process.

Now, in a medium-sized saucepan on a medium-low heat, bring your cream very close to a boil.  When it's starting to bubble slightly at the sides, add in your freshly ground hazelnut meal.  Turn off the heat but stir vigourously while the cream is warm.  Transfer the cream-and-hazelnut mix to a heat-proof bowl and leave it to cool on the bench a little, then cover the bowl with cling wrap and pop it in the fridge to chill for at least three hours (or overnight if you are being particularly organised).

When the cream is chilled to the touch, remove it from the fridge and strain through a mesh sieve to remove the hazelnut meal.  You should use the back of a large spoon to squeeze out as much of the cream from the meal as you can.  From the 600ml of cream I originally used, I only managed to squeeze around 400ml of cream from the meal, which I think must absorb the liquid.  The cream becomes a fragrant, nutty liquid which gives the hazelnut flavour to the pumpkin puree, smoothing out its sweetness and adding an undertone of flavour to the ice cream.

Next, in that big bowl with your chilled pumpkin, mix in your cream until combined.  Add the zest, nutmeg, cinnamon, zest and sea salt.  Don't forget to taste it - pumpkin can vary in sweetness and flavour so you should adjust the amount of sugar and spices to suit your own tastes.  Just remember (as advised by the Red Avenger) when the ice cream is chilled the human tongue doesn't taste the sugar as well, so you may need to add more sugar to the base than you would ordinarily like, so that it tastes sweet enough when frozen.

Now, fire up your ice cream maker, add this liquid and churn, churn, churn!  When it's starting to look thicker, but not quite fully frozen, add in the chopped roasted hazelnuts.  When the machine says it's done, scoop it into a plastic container and freeze for a final 30 minutes until fully frozen.

I highly recommend removing the ice cream from the freezer 3-5 minutes before you need to serve up in order to give it time to soften just enough to be scoopable.

I know that for Australians who always think of pumpkin as savoury, that a sweet pumpkin ice cream seems a little odd, but this turned out beautifully and I highly recommend being a little adventurous and giving this recipe a try.