Lamb tfaya, nothing twrite home about

Our next book is Arabesque by Claudia Roden:

The recipe I chose has an unprepossessing title, 'Couscous with Lamb, Onions and Raisins', but sounded insanely delicious from the description: 'the special feature of this dish is the exquisite mix of caramelized onions, honey and raisins called tfaya which is served as a topping to the long-cooked, deliciously tender meat'.

The thought of all that, together with some couscous, and maybe some bread to soak up the meat broth, and a nice glass of red, spurred me on.

One immediately striking thing about the preparation of the dish is that the lamb is poached, not roasted. So you start by putting boned leg of lamb ($39 at McCaffreys!) into a Dutch Oven with water, and unusual seasonings: ginger, cinnamon, cloves.

This should cook for a couple of hours, with saffron being added half an hour before the end. I should say right now that two hours wasn't long enough; the lamb was still a little tough, and definitely not 'meltingly tender', or whatever the description was.

The tfaya was fun to prepare. Start by cooking down nearly 3 lb of onions with butter and oil:

5.00 p.m.

5.15 p.m.

6.30 p.m.

Soak some raisins:

Then add some honey, the raisins, and some cinnamon to the now caramelized onions:

7.30 p.m.

 Keep on cooking!

8.00 p.m. VERY sticky!

In the meantime, take the meat out of the broth:

Not very appetising...

And strain the broth:

One other crucial ingredient is fried almonds:

Too much! It's just a garnish!

So now for the all important preparation of the dish. Start with some lamb:

 Surround with couscous:

 Cover with tfaya:

 Sprinkle on a few fried almonds and pour round the broth:

It looks good! But the lamb was just not quite right. It tasted OK, but it was a little tough. The broth was very fragrant and the tfaya was indeed exquisite: like an explosion of sweet chutney. But I think next time I will use lamb shoulder not leg, and I will cook it for longer. The real giveaway was that we had some leftovers in the fridge which did not get eaten and had to be thrown away a few days later. Not a hit. But not a disaster either.