Moroccan Magic

I just love the flavour of Moroccan food. What an easy choice for the letter 'M'. The spices are just to die for, and the really good thing with this dish is that it doesn't have a long cooking time because the sauce is cooked first and then the meatballs are poached in it. Dessert was quite an easy choice as well, as Macadamias are my favourite nut. So dinner tonight was Spicy Kefta Tagine with Lemon and Macadamia Nut Mess.


Spicy Kefta Tagine with Lemon

The Kefta
450g finely minced beef or lamb (I chose beef as there was no lamb)
1 onion finely chopped
leaves from a small bunch of flat leaf parsley
1-2 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp of ground coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

To make the kefta, pound the mince meat with your knuckles in a bowl. Using your hands lift up the lump of mince and start throwing it into the bowl, this is so therapeutic after a hard day at school. Add the remaining ingredients and mix and knead together. You can also pound the mince as before by lifting up and throwing it into the bowl. Take pieces of the mixture and shape them into walnut sized balls. You should end up with about 16 kefta.

The Sauce
1 tbsp of olive oil and butter
1 onion roughly chopped
2-3 garlic cloves crushed
thumb size piece of ginger, peeled, finely chopped
1 red chilli, thinly sliced
2 tsp ground turmeric
leaves of a small bunch of fresh coriander chopped
leaves of a small bunch of fresh mint chopped
freshly squeezed juice of a lemon
1 lemon cut into wedges pips removed

Heat the oil and the butter in a tagine or heavy based casserole. Stir in the onion, garlic, ginger, and chilli and saute until they begin to brown. Add the turmeric, half the coriander and the mint, and pour in 300ml of water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes. Carefully place the kefta in the liquid, cover and poach for about 15 minutes, rolling them in the liquid from time to time so they are cooked well on all sides. Pour over the lemon juice, season the liquid with salt and tuck the lemon wedges around. Poach for a further 10 minutes.

Sprinkle with remaining coriander and mint and serve with cous cous. I used pearl cous cous and flavoured it with shaved almonds toasted, coriander, chilli and garlic. I also used vegetable stock to cook the cous cous.

Macadamia Nut Mess

Meringue
4 egg whites at room temp
a pinch of salt
220g caster sugar

Caramel sauce
1 cup of brown sugar
small tub of cream

Vanilla Ice cream
Macadamia Nuts, chopped and whole

Preheat oven to 120C. Using a beater on high speed, whisk the egg whites and the salt to soft peaks. Reduce the speed to medium and slowly add the sugar in a fine stream to ensure it gets properly incorporated into the meringue. When you've added all the sugar, keep beating for a couple of minutes until the meringue looks thick and glossy. Lightly grease a baking tray. Line with baking paper. Dollop the meringue onto the trays in generous tablespoonfuls, leaving space between to allow for spreading. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes or until they have turned golden and crisp on the outside. Then turn oven off and leave in the oven to dry out.

Toast the macadamias under the griller or bylightly dry frying them in a frypan.

To make the caramel sauce put the brown sugar in a saucepan on a medium heat and add some cream. Add the cream in bits till you think that it is thick enough for your tastes - basically I just experimented with it, lol. Good luck.

To make the mess, I layered all the ingredients and drizzled the caramel sauce. Yummo and then add some more macadamias.

Enjoy.