Chicken and camel milk tagine

 I have a new tagine. It's a fancy one - Staub. It cost way too much, but it's the first tagine I've had that does the full job - it works on the stovetop, and in the oven. Until now, I've used a 45 year old enamel pot that came to me through my mother in law, and I will still use that lovely pot, but the added bonus with a tagine like this is that it looks damn good on a table.

I'm still inspired by my trip to Jordan, and after cooking mansaf the other day, I thought of my tagine, and chicken. Chicken is so tender and juicy when poached in milk. Jamie Oliver has a great recipe that I had made when my family still included regular dairy in the diet. But now I use camel milk due to its better casein profile. It also has a richer flavour, a light tang and an incredible creaminess despite its low fat content. Camel milk is readily available here in Dubai - for those who can't find it, substitute with buttermilk rather than regular milk, otherwise it will be a little bland, as I use fillets in this recipe rather than a whole chicken.

Seven Hour Lamb

I first tried a similar recipe to this from Stephanie Alexander's book: Cooking and Travelling in South West France. For those reading who are not Australian, she is as close to we get as a mother and mentor to all food lovers. She doesn't only cook - she also used to run one of the most famous restaurants in Melbourne, and now she has "retired" to the garden - A kitchen garden, for kids. She's a bit of a superwoman really...

Anyway.

I made her 7-hour lamb with anchovies and garlic, and it was incredible. When I tried to lift the leg out of the pot, the entire bone came away. Our neighbours had been smelling at our door all day, and literally came begging - for food, and the recipe.

I've made it several times since. I still call it seven hour lamb, but sometimes its 7 hours at 120°C, and others its 5 hours at 140°C. Sometimes I make it with a bone-in leg of lamb, and sometimes I make it without the bone. Sometimes it fits in a pot, and others, when it doesn't (like last night), I put it in a deep tray and cover it with a few layers of foil. It always works. It's a fairly traditional french recipe, and it appears many chefs make a version (including Nigella). My simplified one is below.

Roast Pork with Italian Inspiration

I first tasted "porchetta" at a deli I worked in when I was 15. It was sold cold, and allthough I loved my mum's pork, it just surpassed everything she did (except of course for the crackling, because that's only a hot food thing). That was just the processed stuff. It came in a roll, vacuum packed, and we sliced it and sold it at $15.99 a kg.

Then this summer, I tasted the real thing in Cortona, Tuscany. It was sold off the bone - off the carcass to be truthful, and the scent of fennel, pepper and pork fat permiated the air like a pipe tone of the pied piper, leading me to its source in the belly of the Friday market (more about Cortona on this post here). This porchetta blew the other off the map.

This is my first attempt, and it's a cracker. Like everything I cook, it's easy, and relies on the quality of the ingredients. I chose a lovely neck of Free Range Otway Pork. Loins are fairly lean and look pretty, and sure, legs have a wonderful flavour, but the neck I find the most tender of all, and without a bone, it cooks quickly and evenly. Not only that, it's super cheap. The best thing was that the rind had been trimmed, removed and then tied back on, making perfect crackling a sinch.