Madhouse recipe : Lamb, prune and apricot tagine

Looking through my cupboards on a recent #KitchenClearout, I spotted lots of half-used bags of dried fruit, so I have been on a mission to use them up over the past couple of weeks. This Moroccan-inspired dish was thrown together in half an hour when I got home from a busy day at work, but you could cook it in the slow cooker (or just let it simmer for longer) to let the flavours really develop. It was still pretty tasty even as a rush job though.

 Lamb, prune and apricot tagine

ingredients :

700g lamb

drizzle of olive oil

2 onions

1 clove of garlic

salt, pepper, ras el hanout

1tbsp brown sugar

dried apricots

soft prunes

2 tins chopped tomatoes

1 chicken stock cube

Start off by seasoning then browning the meat on all sides while you prep the veggies. I wanted it to go nice and brown and crispy on the outside for lots of lovely flavour. Don't move it about too much - let it caramelise slowly.

In a separate pan, heat the olive oil then gently fry the onions and garlic until they go soft. Add the brown sugar and continue cooking for a few more minutes. Stir through the ras el hanout spices.

Add the prunes and dried apricots to the pan.

Add two cans of chopped tomatoes and crumble in a stock cube. Leave to simmer until it thickens.

To make it easier to eat for the kids, I chopped the meat off the bones into chunks then browned it a bit more (they like it well done but you could leave it medium-rare if you prefer.)

Add the meat to the pan, deglaze the meat pan with a little water to get all the stuck-on bits and juices and add it to the mix. Give it all a good stir and add extra salt, pepper and ras el hanout, if necessary. Serve with couscous.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up half bags of prunes and dried apricots that were cluttering up the cupboard.