in which I succumb to a trend

[ursula]

For dinner tonight, I made lamb tagine with spinach, and spicy carrot salad.

I recently acquired one of the trendy modern pressure cookers known as an Instant Pot; I often cook from Madhur Jaffrey's Quick and Easy Indian Cooking, which has a lot of pressure-cooker recipes, so I knew I had a likely use case. I've been experimenting with it, figuring out what sorts of recipes can be adapted efficiently. This tagine, from Paula Wolfert's book The Food of Morocco, is perfect for adaptation: the meat cooks slowly and the vegetables are added right at the very end, so you don't have to mess around with releasing the pressure partway through.

I used storebought organic lemons that I'd salt-preserved myself. They're good, but they're not as good as salt-preserved, home-grown lemons. If you live in a lemon-growing state of the US and would like to trade a package of lemons for a package of things like dried cherries and maple syrup, say the word!


Lamb Tagine with Spinach and Lemon

Feeds two hungry people with rice and salad; to feed more people, increase the quantity of meat and/or add side dishes.

1-1.5 pounds lamb, cut into chunks for stewing
1/4 large onion
1/2 tsp. ginger
pinch pepper
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. (or a pinch) grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cumin seed
bag of fresh spinach
1/2 preserved lemon
olive oil

Grate the onion. Heat the Instant Pot on the "slow cooker" setting and add a dollop of oil and the grated onion. Stir for a while. Change the Instant Pot to the saute setting, dump in the lamb chunks, and brown them. Add the spices, a pinch of salt, and half a cup of water; stir to mix the spices. Put the lid on and cook on the "meat stew" setting for 20 minutes.

Cut the preserved lemon rind into thin strips. Taste the lemon pulp; if it's too sour, discard it, otherwise cut it up a bit, too.

Rinse the spinach. Heat some olive oil in a large pan on the stove. Throw the spinach in, add a pinch of salt, and stir it until it starts to wilt. Cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat to low.

When the meat finishes cooking, release the steam, remove the Instant Pot lid, and scatter the spinach and preserved lemon on top.