Tagine made by slow cooker

I wanted to make something special, easy and super convenient for a dinner party - tagine made by slow cooker is it!

I have always been intrigued about tagine crockery as I have been with slow cookers but until I tried marrying both of them I thought they;d be more trouble than what they are worth.

The cooking processes both seemed far fetched and to be more complicated and specialised (what's with the big Moroccan pizza-oven like crockery) so I thought, but watching a friend use the slow cooker recently, the lure of a cheap slow cooker at Mega (you can pick one up for $40 at Mega and Briscoes), and an easy online tagine recipe search, got my act together and I cooked a lamb tagine for our local winter quiz wind-up the recipe for which is to follow.

Ingredients

500 g lamb
1 tsp ginger
2 clove of garlic
1 onion
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cumin
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp brown sugar
can of chopped tomatoes
1 c chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
5 prunes
5 dried apricot
1/4 c of preserved lemons finely diced (see preserved lemon recipe to follow)
1/4 c ground almond meal (roast and grind almonds in blender)
1 tbsp parsley (in tube)
1 tbsp coriander (in tube)

Alternatives
Use whatever dried fruit (figs, dates, prunes, apricots, fat sultanas) you have. Substitute preserved lemon with lemon juice.
Add a can of chickpeas.
If there is too much juice for you, thicken it by adding a tsp or two of cornflour

Method

Chuck into Slow Cooker all but the last five ingredients. Stir them together.
Set cooker on slow and leave to cook for 10 hours. This means if you prep around 10AM, the tagine will be ready at 8PM.
Half an hour before serving add the last five ingredients
Serve with couscous

Method for couscous
Use one cup of slightly oily boiling water for one cup of couscous.
For four people add 2 cups of slightly oily boiling water to 2 cups of couscous.
Wait until all the water is absorbed by the couscous and fluff it with a fork adding some ground almonds for flavour before serving it hot with the tagine.

If you can afford it mezze like flat bread and mint yoghurt goes well with tagine.