Tagine Cooking

Tasty Pasture Raised Beef with Root Veggies

A tagine is a Moroccan cooking dish that has a unique cone shaped lid that locks in moisture and flavor.  I have just started using this ceramic dish and have found that meats are much more tender and moist than cooking with traditional pots.  I have cooked several meals with this North African pot and have enjoyed each one.  My two Moroccan traditional meals I cooked were “Lamb tagine with prunes, apricots, and honey” and “Chicken tagine with preserved lemon, green olives, and thyme”.  If you would like specific recipes for these dishes, please write and I will send them.  They were great.  I have also tried cooking different cuts of meat in the tagine.  Tonight, I cooked a round steak with potato, carrot, and onion.  Although a little similar to a pot roast, I cooked the meat with very little moister hoping that the tagine would seal in the natural juices.  It turned out terrifically.  Tender, juicy, and delicious.  A fine steak with some root vegetables was an excellent dinner on a cold winters night.

The reason I bring this up is because for those of us who have changed our diets to  eat more pasture raised, locally produced meats, a tagine may be an excellent way to maintain some of the moisture we are used to.  I discussed some of the pros and cons of eating pasture raised, locally produced meats in an earlier post, “Isn’t Organic Best?“.  On that same topic I would ad that eating pastured meat is better for your health.  Commercially raised meat contains a lot more fat than does pasture raised meat.  Also, commercial meat has been exposed to a number of drugs and chemicals designed to keep the animals healthy and growing fast.  I am a firm believer that most of our food supply is safe to eat and that one shouldn’t overreact to all the hype regarding the production of meat.  However, I have much higher sensitivities commercial meat than others.  I can not eat commercial beef without getting sick afterward, however, I can eat pastured beef without any problems.  Overall, pastured meat contains less fat, more Omega 3 fatty acids, less chemicals and hormones, and is more humane to the animals and utilizes far fewer resources.

In the post “Isn’t Organic Best?“, I did not discuss the fact that eating pastured meat requires that you cook it slightly different than commercial meats.  I have found that one excellent way to prepare pastured meats is in a tagine.  Maintaining the terrific flavor, but keeping the meat moist is not a challenge in a tagine.