As I write this, it's a stormy morning, wind is blowing fallen leaves through the window and everything has that 'encroaching autumn' feeling. And whilst the turning of the season is not the best of starts to a Monday (waving goodbye to the summer, realizing you didn't have half as many lazy days and drunken nights as you planned in march) there are
some reasons to be cheerful.
One of these is the return of stews and casseroles to the dinner table. If there is one thing that I could eat endlessly, until I burst (and sometimes it really feels like I will burst) it's got to be dumplings - accompanied if at all possible by a nice rich beef stew. My Nana, who's only cooking technique was to boil things for 3 hours, then another hour, just to be sure, made
the best stew (unfortunately, the whole boiling things until they are dead technique did not lend itself to very pleasant dumplings - they resembled doughy pebbles)
Today's recipe, however, is not beef stew, nor does it contain dumplings (although you could throw some in if you really wanted to. Come to think of it, where did I put the suet..?) What it is, however, is a lamb tagine. Now, I have to confess that I don't own a massive range of kitchen implements, accessories or geegaws (but I do like using the word
geegaw) so my tagine is just made in a casserole pot, rather than the proper way. If you do have access to a swanky earthenware pot, go for it!
