Moroccan Spiced Beef Tagine With Dates, Honey & Prunes

This fragrant beef tagine will transport your senses straight to Morocco with flavorful spices, meltingly tender beef and a thick, slightly fruity broth. The complex flavors of this dish will have you wanting to book a trip to Morocco immediately. This style of stew is called a tagine because of the traditional North African cookware it is prepared in.

A traditional tagine is made of clay or ceramic with a cone-shaped lid. The written history of cooking in a tagine stretches back to the 9th century when recipes were featured in the work entitled The Thousand and One Nights. Nowadays there are some companies that make electric tagines for convenience. However, if you don’t have a tagine, you can use a crock pot.

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Beef That’s Pasture Raised In Mountain Valleys

Our grass-fed & finished beef is raised essentially wild on a beautiful 20,000 acre ranch here in New Mexico. The cows roam freely as far as the eye can see with extremely minimal handling. For those familiar with New Mexico, it might sound surprising that there’s so much lush green grass for them to graze on. These fields are naturally irrigated by a sparkling river flowing with ice-melt from the Sangre de Cristo mountains. We started stocking beef due to popular demand from customers who wanted to eat this meat with the knowledge that it’s impeccably sourced.

Sourced With Care Every Step Of The Way

Our cattle enjoy the shade of large trees, blue sunny skies and direct access to this river. People tell us all the time that they stopped eating beef because it was too difficult to find a truly reliable source. We felt the same way, until we began sourcing from this farm. We started stocking beef due to popular demand from customers who wanted to eat this meat with the knowledge that it’s impeccably sourced.

Quality Meat Delivered Straight To Your Doorstep

We work exclusively with masterful local butchers. Our beef is cut by Amish butchers who have been practicing their craft for generations. Five people work on one animal at a time and the utmost care and precision is put into each cut of meat. Everything is pressure sealed immediately after butchering and flash frozen at the peak of freshness. Every order is hand packed at our warehouse in Santa Fe and shipped in reusable coolers with dry ice, straight to your door.

Also Read: The Ultimate Beck & Bulow Roast Beef Sandwich Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs grass fed & finished beef chuck roast cubed
• 1 tablespoon bison tallow or avocado oil + more as needed
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely minced
• 1 pound of carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
• 9 ounces of canned tomatoes
• 4 ounces Medjool dates, pitted (left whole)
• 6 ounces prunes, pitted (left whole)
• 2 tablespoons organic honey
• ½ pint bison bone broth
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 6 teaspoons ras el hanout spice mix (can be substituted with 2 teaspoons cumin, 2 teaspoons coriander powder, 1 teaspoon ginger powder and 1 teaspoon turmeric powder)
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 ounces almonds, sliced and toasted
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

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Instructions:

1. Heat a pot on the stove and bring water to a boil. Parboil the carrots for approximately 4 minutes.
2. Preheat the crock pot to high (or if you have an electric tagine, use that)
3. Heat up ½ of the bison tallow or avocado oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Brown the quartered onions until they’re charred and golden. Add them to the crock pot.
4. Add the parboiled carrots and minced garlic to the crock pot.
5. Add the honey and all of the dried spices to the bison bone broth. Pour the mixture into the pot and combine thoroughly. Put the whole cinnamon stick in the crock pot.
6. Add the canned tomatoes, pitted dates and pitted prunes to the crock pot. Combine thoroughly.
7. Heat the remaining bison tallow or avocado oil in the cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the beef cubes in small batches until they have a nice brown crust on all sides. As they finish browning, add them into the crock pot.
8. When all of the meat has been added to the stew, stir well and season generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
9. Cook on high for 6-10 hours (check after 6 - cooking time will depend on your crock pot).
10. Serve with couscous and garnish with the fresh chopped cilantro & toasted almond slivers.

Also Read: Bison vs. Beef: The Benefits of Replacing Beef with Bison in Your Diet