Recipe - Low Carb Lamb Tagine

To prove that eating a diabetic friendly diet of low carbohydrate foods is not only good for you but really tasty too, we cooked a few different things for everyone to sample at our recent Diabetes Day. The response was really great and loads of people asked for the recipes, so here’s the first one: a classic lamb tagine with the high carb apricots and dates left out! It’s a Moroccan dish, which has quite a kick to it so those who don’t like too much heat may want to slightly reduce the amount of cayenne (or increase it if you’re like me!). It’s even better the next day (if there’s any left).

Low Carb Lamb Tagine

Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ tablespoons paprika
1 ½ tablespoons ground ginger
1 tablespoon turmeric
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1.4kg / 3LB lamb, cut into 5cm / 2in chunks
2 large onions finely chopped
2 Chopped carrots
1 Red chopped pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
600ml /1 pint of tomato juice
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
85g / 3 oz flaked almonds
1 teaspoon saffron, soaked in a little cold water
600 ml / 1 pint lamb stock
2 tablespoons coriander, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Method

1. In a small bowl, mix the cayenne, black pepper paprika, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon. Use half of this in which to toss the lamb, cover and leave in the fridge overnight (I put the meat in a plastic bag large enough to hold it comfortably add the spice mix and give it a really good shake- the meat seems to get a more uniform coating and it is easier to seal up completely).Reserve the remainder of the spice mix.

2. Next day, preheat the oven to 150c / 300f / gas2.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large casserole dish. Add the chopped onions, carrots and peppers and the remaining spice mix and cook for about 10 minutes – the onions need to be soft but not coloured. Add the crushed garlic towards the end of this time.

4. In a separate frying pan, heat the remaining olive oil and brown the meat on all sides-this will need to be done in batches. As each batch is done, add it to the casserole dish. When all the meat has been browned and added to the casserole dish, deglaze the frying pan with about a quarter of the tomato juice and also add that to the casserole dish.

5. Add the remaining ingredients- except the coriander, flaked almonds and parsley- to the casserole dish. Bring to the boil, put the lid on and put in the oven for at least 2 ½ hours-the meat needs to be virtually falling apart.

6. Sprinkle over the chopped herbs, flaked almonds and serve.