Sweet, Sweet Meat

We ventured to Africa last night. Algeria was the country of the day, and with this dinner came the purchase of two ingredients I had never before used in my cooking: turmeric and prunes.

Turmeric

I'm pretty sure this makes me a big dork, but I could not wait to tear the plastic off the bottle of turmeric to smell it, so I opened it right in the grocery store. The odor is earthy, and reminded me of dry mustard. When I got home I did some research, to find that it is in the same family as ginger. Although turmeric is unrelated to saffron, it is often known as "Indian Saffron". It's believed that turmeric is sometimes substituted for saffron because of its lower price.

The turmeric was used to spice my Algerian Couscous, which I chose because couscous is a staple in the Algerian diet. The recipe consists of many fresh vegetables cut into chunks, and simmered with tomato paste, vegetable stock, and spices, until it becomes a thick stew. The stew is then poured on top of the prepared couscous. The turmeric, along with some cayenne pepper, cloves and cinnamon, gave the stew a very unique and pungent flavor.

Prunes

Why is it that the more obscure ingredients that I will likely never use again always come in the biggest packaging? I scoured the market for a tiny container of pitted prunes, and walked out with a tall cylinder that Henry could barely lift. But, they were essential to my second Algerian dish, Lahm Lhalou, which is Arabic for "Sweet Meat".

I started preparing the Lahm Lhalou by searing chunks of lamb, and then setting them aside to simmer sugar, water, orange juice, a cinnamon stick, and almonds. The lamb went back into the pan and everything simmered together for an hour. I then added the prunes and cooked for fifteen final minutes.

I was skeptical. I prefer my lamb on the chop with a mustard rosemary glaze. I choose salty over sweet. But the Sweet Meat was good. Simmering the lamb for over an hour made it tender, and the flavor that infused the lamb was pleasantly sweet, without being offensive. The prunes were a good compliment to the meat, if I could just get over the texture of them.

Algerian Couscous will be added to my recipe book. I'm thrilled to have a vegetarian dish in my back pocket if I ever need one. Now I need to find other uses for my turmeric! The cylinder of prunes, however... went in the trash. I am not eager to recreate Sweet Meat. It was very good, and the flavors were unique to my palate, but the next time I cook lamb I have other plans for it.

Uniqueness of flavors earned Algeria a high score: 3.0.