Surprise Chef: Cheekily Unseasonal Tagine

Aristos Papandroulakis certainly never jumped out at me in the veggie aisle at Coles or inspected the contents of my freezer (the poor man would be sorely tried, I keep nothing more than ice, ice cream and gin in it), but we've had many a night of fun and intrigue in the kitchen with our very own Surprise Chef meals.

You guessed it, Sarvelicious simply arrives on our doorstep with a bag of Mystery Veggies, which we upend on the counter amongst my purchases, and we decide "who's friends with what" over a cuppa.

After a series of Mystery Chef nights, we've arrived at a not-very-mysterious conclusion...our initial goal was to try new things, but our meals tend to end always take us out to Persia, Lebanon, Greece and Egypt!

The contents of our grocery expeditions are quite often: figs, dates, pistachios, shredded coconut, three types of cheese (usually at least one haloumi and one fetta), Greek yoghurt, cucumbers, eggplant, a leg of lamb, mograbieh, Persian candy floss and red capsicum.

Rummaging in our pantry often produces: pomegranate molasses, orange blossom water, couscous, more fetta, tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, preserved lemon and beetroot.

We were given a beautiful tagine with a stainless steel base for Christmas and decided it was quite appropriate to christen it over a Surprise Chef meal. The following recipe is our own, much inspired by the generations of good cooking handed down through the women in Sarvelicious' life, and the many Saturday mornings I've spent reading Saha by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

Cheekily Unseasonal Tagine
(December 30th in the southern hemisphere doesn't naturally feel like tagine weather!)

Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
1 bulb of garlic, sliced in half horizontally
750g leg of lamb, trimmed and diced to 1cm cubes
Pinch each of sumac, turmeric and cumin
1 to 2 Tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 tin tomatoes (or 4-6 fresh tomatoes, skinning is optional)
2 tins organic chickpeas (There really seems to be a difference! Rinse four times to remove tinny taste, or prepare dried chickpeas if you're planning ahead)
1 cup whole walnuts
1 cup stock (I can't extol the virtues of homemade enough, if you have the time)
1 cup gutsy red wine (or whatever you feel like drinking after)
1 cup couscous

Method:
Brown onion, garlic and lamb.
Throw in pinches of sumac, turmeric and cumin and drizzle molasses over.
Add tomatoes, chickpeas and walnuts.
Season, add the stock and wine, bring to boil.
Cover tagine, lower the heat and let it simmer for an hour while you enjoy the rest of the wine.
Stir couscous through and recover, allowing the grains to absorb moisture for about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat, leave to rest 10-15 minutes.

Serve with:
Salad - sliced raw snow peas, cherry tomatoes, parsley and pistachios, dressed with juice of preserved lemon, olive oil and hazelnut dukkah.
Raita - grate a cucumber into Greek yoghurt (optional: sprinkle with cumin)
Drizzles - tahini mixed with truffle honey (hooray for the Mundaring Truffle Festival!)
Dustings - chaat masala spice mix

The tagine produces lamb that pokes apart with a spoon, something we've only previously achieved after three hours of oven time. The chickpeas and walnuts are earthy, and the garlic presents beautifully as a perfect half, soft and sweetly complementary to the lamb. The molasses leave a delicious tang, fabulous friends with the crunchy salad and lush little sides.

I don't remember having space for dessert...and I know there was fetta, but I can't remember where it fit in...if you happen to have some on hand, just poke cubes into the couscous before you let the tagine sit for 10 minutes while you throw your salad together and whisk some honey into the tahini.

Next time: Leonard Cohen picnic hampers. Was there fetta? Indeed...