Ras el Hanout

During my tenure as a restaurant owner and chef of a fine dining restaurant, I used to get all kinds of trade publications in the mail. Today in the age of digital magazines, how weird does that sound? Although I always blazed my own trail as a chef, those magazines kept me abreast of American restaurant and menu trends. Some years ago, a big trend was chefs putting ras el hanout on everything.

Ras el Hanout Spices in Grinder

Ras el hanout is a general purpose spice blend from North Africa that is used in the same sense that garam masala, five spice powder, quatre épices, dukkah, and so forth are used. While these spice mixes are convenient and used by millions of cooks around the world, I never appreciated the one-size-fits-all nature of them, because rarely does one size fit all. And I probably spent too much time in an Indian kitchen where each dish had its own specific masala.

One of the things that caused American chefs to fall in love with ras el hanout is the complex mixture of sweet and savory spices that adds a definite North African flair to dishes. Some versions are highly complex indeed, counting dozens of ingredients. No matter the composition, we can all agree that those flavors are wonderful.

I happened on a couple of lamb foreshanks at the farmers market last week and instantly I knew I was going to do a lamb shank tagine, in my ever so traditional Western tagine, my crockpot. 

I don't keep spice mixes in the house because I like to tweak the mix for each dish according to my mood, so the first order of business was to make some ras el hanout. For my blend, I used allspice, coriander, paprika, cumin, caraway, fennel, and black pepper, in decreasing order of amount. I would have added powdered ginger, but I didn't have any, so I leaned a bit heavier on allspice and coriander.

Most people add cinnamon to their mix, but I prefer just to drop a cinnamon stick into the tagine. Many versions include spicy ground chiles, but I left them out, knowing that I would be adding some of my harissa paste (recipe here) directly into the dish. Garlic and saffron went into the dish separately as well.

Ras el Hanout

To start the tagine, I put into the crockpot:

a 28-ounce can of tomatoes
2 carrots, chopped
a large onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
a couple huge spoonfuls of harissa
a cinnamon stick

a pinch of saffron 

3-4 tablespoons of my ras el hanout

a teaspoon of Kosher salt

 

Ready to Cook

After a good stir, in went the two lamb shanks to braise for about five hours. (How weird to be only cooking two shanks versus the 40 or so at a time we would cook at the restaurant!) At the end, I added a quart and a half of cooked chickpeas and let them warm through for about 20 minutes. After a final seasoning, the falling apart tender shanks were ready to serve, each with a dollop of harissa on top.

Lamb Shank and Chickpea Tagine with Harissa

The sweet and savory spices of ras el hanout are simply terrific with lamb. And simply torture to smell while cooking for the better part of the day!

Unanticipated bonus: the leftover chickpeas and broth from the tagine became hummus the following day!

Downey Tasting/Lyon Hall

We look forward to the Downey Selections portfolio tasting in Arlington each spring, partly because it is a great time, partly because the Downeys make you feel like family at a big reunion, and partly because it affords us a once-a-year opportunity to sample some of the great restaurants in Clarendon.

I always have a short list of wines to try at these big portfolio tastings. It's just not feasible to taste all the wines being shown. This year, I was looking for a solid Bordeaux Supérieur and perhaps a Tannat for our list. With a mature list, there's not a whole lot that we're actively seeking. Both wines found and ordered and business being complete, Ann and I headed out for happy hour and an early dinner while waiting out rush hour traffic. As much as we would have loved to throw down with the Downey crew at the after party, we get so very few opportunities for alone time, just the two of us.

After the last tasting we attended, we ended up at Liberty Tavern thanks to a tip from Brennan Downey. That marked the end of a many year run at Willow, also a fine restaurant, mostly because while I enjoy the food at Willow, the food at Liberty Tavern speaks to my inner chef. Despite craving the food at Liberty Tavern, we decided to branch out and try sister restaurant Lyon Hall, an Alsatian brasserie concept. And we were so not disappointed!

Happy hour sees a bunch of the 20 or so by-the-glass selections marked down to half price, $4-$5. Ann had a Premières Côtes de Blaye, Château la Rivalerie, a reasonable Bordeaux blend. I started with a Blanquette de Limoux sparkler because I had never had this wine before. I've had sparkling Mauzac (the grape they also call Blanquette) before from AOC Gaillac. This Limoux was much more refined than the extremely rustic Gaillacs that I have tasted in the past, with only hints of the ripe pear and apple flavors that I have come to expect from Mauzac. In any case, it was delicious.

With our drinks we ordered mussels and fries and both were done well. Our mussels were prepared Moroccan style with tomatoes, chickpeas, tiny black olives, preserved lemon, garlic, ras el hanout, and finished with a sprinkle of fresh mint. Way delicious! The fries were hand-cut and everything you would hope for save being fried in duck fat.

After our aperitifs, we ordered a bottle of Gigondas and while were slurping away on mussels, owner Mark Fedorchak came over and introduced himself to us. While we were chatting, a runner brought us small samples of the pâté maison (photo below) which was unctuously delicious because of the liver it contained, something my customers would hate. It was a very nice gesture for Mark to send us the pâté. And I have to say that as good as the pâté was, the pickled vegetables were even better. Nice touch!

We asked Mark for menu recommendations and he insisted that we order the steak tartare. No offense but steak tartare I can get anywhere. Our server said that to get a real taste of the restaurant, we should get the sampler of their house-made sausages. That sounded more like the ticket to me so we ordered that and also a sampler of all five cheeses that they either make or age in house ("frommage maison"): ash-ripened goat crottin, goat ricotta, Calvados chèvre, a Roquefort St. Maure-styled blue goat, and a Cabécou-styled goat-cow double-cream bloomed rind cheese.

When the cheeses and sausages arrived, the runner also brought an order of steak tartare. Our server said that Mark really must have wanted us to taste it and I can see why. Made from skirt steak and topped with an egg yolk, it was both really flavorful and beautiful and texturally so much better than when made with filet. Mark, once again, thank you for your kind generosity. You see the remains of the tartare at the top of the photo below, above the cheese plate.

The sausages were really good and I appreciate that they were made in house, as our server Becca said, "with care and love." I think I enjoyed the small smoky Thuringian the best, but the big fat brat with cheese was delicious, and the duck/foie gras sausage was sinful. The big brat with chunks of Gruyère inside was a new form of sausage for me; I've never had this so-called Käsekrainer before. Really delicious!

After this smorgasbord, we could barely waddle to the car.