Tanjia Marrakchia (Marrakech Slow-Braised Beef)

Name: Tanjia Marrakchia (Marrakech Slow-Braised Beef)
Total time: 4 h 10 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Moroccan
Ingredients: 1.2 kg Beef or lamb shank, in large chunks; 8 Garlic cloves; 1 Preserved lemon; 1 tbsp (7 g) Ground cumin; Saffron threads; 1 tsp Ground ginger; 40 g Smen or butter; 30 ml Olive oil; 150 ml Water; 1 tsp Salt

Marrakech's 'bachelor's dish': meat, preserved lemon, garlic, cumin and saffron sealed in a pot and cooked for hours with almost no attention until it is spoon-soft.

Nguồn

Công thức của Moroccan home kitchens · 🏺 Truyền thống · Moroccan household cooking

Marrakech home cooking — Tangia (tanjia) is both an urn-shaped terracotta pot and the stew cooked in it, a speciality of Marrakech. It is prepared with meat, one or more preserved lemons, whole cumin, garlic and saffron, sealed and cooked slowly for hours — historically in the embers of the neighbourhood hammam oven. There is no single author; it is a working-city dish with countless household versions.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made

Authentic Moroccan Cuisine 🇲🇦مطبخ مغربي أصيل

⏱ 250 phút🍽 4 khẩu phần🔥 500 kcal🇲🇦 Maroc

HalalKhông sữaKhông glutenKhông hạt

Nguyên liệu

Khẩu phần

🛒 Mua nguyên liệu

Đã bỏ qua đồ có sẵn trong bếp — chỉ còn thứ thật sự phải đi mua.

★ đánh dấu nguyên liệu mà công thức nói là khó tìm hoặc không thể thay thế.

Các bước

Heat the oven to 140°C. Put the meat into a deep, heavy ovenproof pot with a tight lid.
Add the whole garlic, preserved lemon, cumin, ginger, saffron water, smen, olive oil, salt and the water. Turn everything over once with your hands to coat.
💡 That is the whole assembly — no browning, no chopping, barely any liquid. Tanjia was the meal a market worker sealed in the morning and left at the neighbourhood oven all day.
Clamp the lid on tightly. If it is not a good seal, lay a sheet of foil under the lid to trap every bit of steam.
Cook in the low oven for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, undisturbed. Do not open it to peek — every opening lets out the steam that is cooking it.
It is ready when the meat gives way completely to a spoon and the garlic has dissolved into a mellow sauce at the bottom.
💡 There is no rescuing an under-cooked tanjia by turning up the heat — the magic is time, not temperature. If it still resists, give it another half hour low.
Skim any excess fat, mash the soft garlic and preserved lemon into the juices, and serve straight from the pot with bread and cumin-salt.

💡 Mẹo

Tanjia is named after the urn-shaped clay pot it is cooked in, and in Marrakech it is traditionally taken to the wood-fired oven of the public bathhouse to cook in the embers all day. A low home oven and a heavy lidded pot recreate that slow, sealed heat.
It is called the bachelor's dish because it needs no skill and no watching: seal it and walk away. That is also the beginner's gift here — get the seal tight and the oven low, and the pot does the rest.