Oct 20 2008
Not like it was in the picture
A tea that I’d been greatly looking forward to but which to my mind, missed the mark.
- Lamb, Olive and Caramelised Onion Tagine
- Ginger Passionfruit Trifle
I’d been looking forward to this tagine as I like olives and I like caramelised onions, and the idea of bringing them both together with succulent slowly cooked lamb to give a rich hearty stew was very appealing. Dougal had already made clear his intention of making another batch of the Bertinet Spicy Moroccan Rolls to go with this dish. We went all out with organic free range Mrs Hamiltons Lamb (diced gigot) bought at the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market and chose family favourite Co Op’s Primitivo Sangiovese to fill the role of ‘75cl bottle red wine’ for the meat to cook in.
We debated for some time whether the cloves of garlic (one head’s worth) should go in peeled or not. The picture in the book suggested unpeeled but I’m sure somewhere else in the book Nigella describes garlic as ‘unpeeled’ so we went with peeled here.
I suspect we were wrong with the garlic as once cooked, this had very little of the range of colours the picture in the book suggested it would. In fact it was pretty much black. Perhaps I’m attributing too much power to garlic skin but I wonder whether it might have sequestered some pigments along the way, allowed a range of colours to shine through.
As you can see above, this stew was also too watery. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that there was a bottle of wine in it, but I think it needed reduced and sauced up a bit. In any case the couscous and chickpeas we served alongside (intentionally quite plain but just a bit dull as far as I was concerned) really failed to soak up all these juices. Nothing about the bits of this dish from the recipe was appetising or appealing to look at. Nor was it especially great on the palate. The lamb was dry (how???) and for all that there were lots of flavours in the mix (cumin, coriander, capers, caramelised onions, garlic!!) this had quite a thin, layer-less flavour. Dull, dry and overly watery.
Thankfully we had D’s scrummy bread which was great for mopping up sauce. We discovered rather too late in the day that we had never replaced the commercial Ras-El-Hanout spice mix he’d used for these previously. After Dougal had a dismal trudge around North/East Edinburgh in the weeing rain with no spice acquiring success, we consulted the internet and made our own spice blend. The over all effect was less potent than with the Bart’s stuff but by no means disappointing. And we had great fun measuring out all the bits! Check out the flickr version of the mix picture to see what each of the colours is.
For pudding we dipped into the Razzle Dazzle fancy-schmancy chapter (and also back into my parent’s booze cupboard) for the Ginger Passionfruit Trifle. I think I’d always meant to make this for my mum and dad as my dad really likes his passionfruit and my mum really likes her trifles: frankly I’m not sorry I didn’t save it for them as it wasn’t a patch on any trifle my mum’s ever made.
Yes, it looked pretty cool. All that passionfruit shining out from the cream. But the madelines, despite a good soaking in Crabbie’s Green Ginger (no Stone’s here, thank you, we’re in Edinburgh) were a bit dry, and, astonishingly for a Nigella recipe, there didn’t seem to be enough cream. The biggest issue, though, was that there was no custard.Whoever heard of a trifle without custard? I know this is Nigella Express, but my mum makes making Bird’s look like no effort at all and I feel quite certain that it would have been absolutely within the spirit of the book to call for a carton of fresh supermarket custard to layer into this. Waitrose fresh vanilla custard is a pudding in its own right (damn you Na for introducing it to us!) and would fit in just nicely here, I’m sure.
So yes, it was bonny. But this trifle was a disappointing end to a frankly below-par meal. My apologies to my poor old best friend from school who had to suffer it as her birthday tea; she and her man were too polite to do anything other than make appreciative noises but I know we could have done better for them. Next time, perhaps.
I agree with everything you said. Disappointing and we’re not even sure why. How, after all that gentle stewing, did the lamb turn out tough and dry? Maybe it was the wrong wine - imagine the horror if we were let down by Primitivo Sangiovese!
It /looks/* like you didn’t seal the lamb before adding all the liquid. This may have led to juices leaching out at first (if you then don’t cook for hours [or are too hot] it stays dry). Also, it looks quite lean.
I guess what I’m saying is that your bug report is missing essential details which would allow diagnosis of the problem.
* HTML, who needs it?
Not sealed, no. And cooked for about three hours, which is more than the recipe calls for. You’re right about lean though, when we opened the cold pot the next day there were scanty dots of fat on top but nothing substantial; compare this to the Coq au Riesling which had practically set to a proteinaceous fatty gloop and it’s no surprise it seemed a bit thin.
Bug reports not my strong point. Will try better next time!
I don’t know why your tagine turned out like this - it’s one of my favourite dishes in Nigella Express. Always flavoursome and not anywhere near watery. Mine looks quite different to your pictures. And I never seal the lamb.
Great work on the blog, love reading it.
Cheers Gordon, afraid the blog has gone downhill a bit this year, without the impetus of the Book to get through, and now with the added complication of my going back to university and adding a four hour commute to my working (eating) day.
I’d *like* to give this dish the benefit of the doubt, try it again. But it was such a let down I’d feel it was a waste of the ingredients. We watched Nigella make it once- Nigella Express on YouTube or somesuch and honestly can’t work out why it came out so bad. Maybe one day someone who’s got the hang of it will make it for me!