It’s hard not to love a recipe that’s as flavorful as it is convenient, and this Moroccan Beef Tagine does it all! It’s everything you love about tender beef with a rich blend of flavors, from just the right amount of savory to the perfect amount of sweet, and can be made easy with a pressure cooker to set-and-forget until you’re ready to enjoy. For some, this dish might already be a favorite, and for others, it might be their first foray into Moroccan cooking, but there’s a lot to enjoy here either way.
The dish gets its namesake from the earthenware pot that it’s traditionally cooked in. But we won’t begrudge anyone for not having a spare earthenware pot laying around, you can still make and enjoy this great dish if you have a pressure cooker, that’s what we did, and the result was still fantastic. We used Halal chuck roast from Midamar that was perfect for a recipe with a long cook time like this one, it provides plenty of quality beef that takes its time to get nice and tender.
The beef will cook with some yellow onion and ginger to get infused with a great mix of savory flavors, and this is all done in the pressure cooker where it’ll all simmer together in the juices from the beef. It’ll cook this way for a little under an hour, which is the perfect time to make the prune sauce and almond garnish in a pan off to the side. The almonds are simple, they just toast until golden brown, and they’ll add a nice nutty flavor and a mix of texture to go with the rest of the dish.
The prune sauce can be made in the same pan afterwards, and this is where the sweetness of this dish will come in and make the final product so deliciously complex. It’s a simple mix of prunes, honey, and cinnamon, all simmered down into a soft syrup that compliments that mostly savory flavors of the rest of the dish. When the beef is done, the liquids in the pot can be simmered down into a very tasty gravy that’s perfect to mix the tender beef into.
With the beef cooked to perfection and the prunes simmered into a deliciously sweet sauce, by their powers combined they come together to make a dish that does it all. The beef is rich and savory, and the sauce is just the right amount of sweet so you can enjoy both flavors at the same time, then the toasted almonds add a little bit of crunch to what is otherwise a soft texture. We served ours over some turmeric rice to round out the whole experience. This dish became a surprise hit for me, I expected to like it, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and I can’t wait for you to try it for yourself!
That’s it for this week, I highly recommend you give this a try, it’s a perfect recipe to make for dinner when you want to try something different and with minimal hassle. Or if this is already a favorite recipe of yours, how’d we do? Let us know somewhere that you enjoyed this or what you did differently, and be sure to share it with someone else who would enjoy everything this dish has to offer.
