A while back, maybe three months ago, my baker-in-training friend, Tabris, enlightened me of the Moroccan cuisine. He shared with me this recipe and I finally got to test it out two weeks ago and good lord the flavors were incredible! It's a bit more time consuming, but definitely worth the wait and torture of smelling as it cooks.

Moroccan Beef Stew with Chickpeas

Ingredients:

• 1 to 2 tbps olive oil
  
• 1 1/4 lbs stew beef, cubed or cut into roughly 1in pieces
  
• 1 medium white onion, finely chopped
  
• 4 cloves of garlic, diced
  
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
  
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (regular paprika is fine if you don't have smoked)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
  
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
  
• 1/4 cup seeded raisins
  
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-1in cubes
  
• 3 cups salt-reduced chicken stock (Kitchen Basics brand of their Low Sodium cartons is really good, it's what we use)
  
• One 15oz can Chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  
• thinly sliced green onion strips for garnish (OPTIONAL)

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook the beef, browning on all sides but not completely cooked all the way. Transfer the meat to a plate and place somewhere to keep it warm. (You'll see why the meat just needs to be browned for now in a few steps.)
   
2. Place the onion into the saucepan, cooking it until softened. This should take about 5 minutes or so. Add a little more oil to the pan if needed, to keep the onion from sticking.
   
3. Add the garlic, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, turmeric, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Cook for another minute. Add the apricots, raisins, sweet potato, the pre-cooked beef, and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and cover, letting the mixture stew for 1 hr 30 minutes.
   
4. After said time, add the chickpeas and heat throughout.

Garnish with green onion.

From what Tab had mentioned, I was expecting a lot of flavor, but what I got was still a complete surprise. The stew turned out absolutely delicious, full of flavor and spices that went very well together. It's sweet, meaty, spicy but not hot, and even better as left overs as all of the juices and spices and such have more time to mix. One batch can easily serve around 5-7 people, and the Cheesy Pull-Apart Garlic Bread is great for accompanying this dish.

If one wanted to add a bit of heat to the dish, 1 1/2 - 2 tsp of chili powder into the cooking mixture would probably warm it up good, tabasco doing well for personal servings.

One thing is for sure though, Tab, you've gotten me very interested in the Moroccan cuisine just with this one dish. Can't wait to look up other recipes.