If you want a 'proven' Tagine recipe ...
Moroccan Lamb Tagine
Stewing lamb - 500g, in rough chunks
2 tablespoon Olive oil
2 large Onions
2 large Garlic cloves
½ a Lemon
2 tins Chopped tomatoes
Fresh thyme - a few sprigs
2 teaspoons of 'Ras el hanout' <see below>
50g Apricots
400g Cooked chickpeas
Spinach leaves - 1 packet, thoroughly washed, dried and chopped
Salt, freshly ground black pepper
1. Using a very hot pan and the olive oil, brown the lamb chunks in batches.
2. As they cook, put them into your ovenproof dish and squeeze the half lemon over.
3. Add a little more oil to the pan and fry the onions and garlic, season them with salt
and pepper and stir over a moderate heat so that they cook without burning.
4. Add to the ovenproof dish with the tomatoes, thyme, Ras Al Hanout, apricots and chickpeas.
5. Cook at 190°C/375°F for an hour and a half until lamb is tender.
6. For the last ten minutes of the cooking time add the chopped spinach to the dish along with seasonings.
7. Serve with rice or couscous.
Ras El Hanout: (رأس الحانوت). It is a 'must have' blend of herbs and spices is used across the Middle East and North Africa. The name means "head of the shop" in Arabic, and refers to a mixture of the best spices a seller has to offer.
There is no set combination of spices that makes up ras el hanout, but most versions contain over a dozen spices, including cardamom, mace (spice), nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground chili peppers. Some recipes include over one hundred ingredients, some quite unusual, such as ash berries, chufa, Grains of Paradise, orris root, Monk's pepper, cubebs, dried rosebud, and the potentially toxic belladonna and Spanish fly (however, the sale of Spanish fly was banned in the spice markets o