Beef Tagine with Red Potatoes

I'm a huge fan of Cooking Light.  When I look through my magazine, I get the same feeling as when I shop in a cheap store. That feeling of "oh I can get anything I want and I know it's still okay" comes over me.  Cooking Light has lots of lovely recipes and great articles about healthy eating and the best part is that everything looks and tastes DELICIOUS!  It's pretty much guilt free, don't you love that feeling?


So since last month's issue, I've been eyeing this incredible looking Beef Tagine and tonight is the night, baby!


I had to make one major tweak to the recipe since Adam doesn't like squash.  What can you do, the man doesn't like squash.  So I substituted red potato.


I had almost everything already in my kitchen except the meat, the chicken broth, shallots and garlic.  Overall, this was a fairly inexpensive meal.  I think I spent $14 or less.  Woohoo!


So here's what you'll need:

• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 pound beef shoulder, although I used beef chuck and beef round - it was all I could find
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 shallots, quartered
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 cup chicken broth, I always use reduced fat, low sodium broth
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained, again I use no salt added variations
• 3 cups root vegetable - I used red potatoes but the recipe calls for butternut squash

The recipe also calls for chopped cilantro to be served at the end but I HATE cilantro.  Apparently one's like or dislike of cilantro is hereditary, so it's technically not my fault.

Step 1:

For a recipe like this, I like to set up everything first.  So prep the potatoes.  I just gave them a good scrub , cut out some of the gnarly eyes and cut them into medium sized cubes.  Everything is easy to prepare.  I even measure out my spices in little glass dishes.  So once you have your chopped garlic and cut shallots and cleaned, dried beef, you're ready for step 2. Yay!

Step 2:

Toss all the spices in a bowl with the beef.  Coat it the beef all nice like... it will look something like this:

Then go wash those filthy hands and warm the oil in a big pot, cause you're ready to cook.
Double yay!

Step 3:
Once the oil is hot, brown the beef and the shallots.  Don't worry about the shallots getting brown.  Just add the shallots in at the same time and give the beef a nice turn around until all of it looks nice and evenly browned.  It is going to smell SO GOOD.  


Then throw in the garlic.  After a few stirs, add the can of tomatoes and the chicken broth.  Bring everything to a boil and then add the potatoes.

I noticed there wasn't enough liquid to cover the potatoes. I put a splash more chicken broth and covered the pot.  Don't worry, there will be plenty of liquid once everything starts to break down.  After about 15 minutes, you'll notice that the potatoes are covered up with the broth now.

I let everything cook down till there was a lot less liquid, which was beginning to thicken after about 30 minutes.  I wanted to make sure the meat was nice and tender, since it's typically a tough cut of meat. I was careful as I stirred to ensure I didn't break too many potatoes as they softened.  It's pretty much impossible, but I don't mind some broken down potatoes, they're tasty any way you serve them.

The recipe calls for 40 minutes of stove top time, but I ended up cooking it far longer.   I'm a patient woman, and would rather have melt in your mouth meat and wait a little longer. After about an hour and 15 minutes, I turned off the stove and let the tagine sit for a few minutes.  

After a taste test, it was ready to be served.  

This is how it looked in the end:

 

Certainly not the most attractive meal, but it was REALLY flavorful. It ended up looking nothing like the picture in the Cooking Light Article, but its the taste that counts, right? I see a ton of potential for this mix of spices.  I never thought to use cinnamon and ginger in a stew, but believe me it was awesome.  Adam and I loved it and there is plenty of left overs to enjoy.  

The one thing I would do differently would be to cook down the meat on its own for a while before adding the potatoes.  I would also add other vegetables like large chunks of carrots, maybe some parsnip.  But that's for next time, and I assure you there will be a next time for this delectable dish.