Festive Beef Tagine with Pistachio & Pomegranate

Preparation: 15 minutes | Cooking: 50 minutes | Serves: 6

This beef tagine with pistachio and pomegranate is comforting, hearty and full of festive flavour.

Ingredients

• 800 g beef oyster blade, 3cm diced and trimmed. You can also use chuck steak, however, this will need to cook for about 1.5 hours (instead of 30 minutes) before adding the pumpkin.
• 1 tbsp baharat spice mix
• 200 g baby grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 12 prunes, roughly chopped
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 pomegranate
• 300 g butternut pumpkin, peeled, 3cm dice
• 4 cups green curly kale, stems removed, leaves chopped
• juice of ½ lemon, + wedges, to serve
• 15 cups wholemeal couscous
• ¼ pistachios, toasted, roughly chopped
• greek yoghurt, coriander leaves, to serve

Method

1. Place beef, spice, tomatoes, chickpeas, prunes and onion in a large cast-iron casserole dish or saucepan with a heavy base. Cut pomegranate in half and tap seeds into a bowl. Reserve half of the seeds for serving and squeeze remaining seeds into the bowl to collect the juice. Pour juice through a sieve into the casserole discarding the squeezed seeds.
2. Add 250ml water and bring to a boil. Cover with lid, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring once to ensure it is not sticking. Add pumpkin and cook for 15-20 minutes or until pumpkin is just tender. Simmer uncovered for 5-10 minutes if sauce needs thickening. Add kale and stir through. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and check seasoning.
3. Cook couscous according to packet directions.
4. Place tagine mixture in serving dish and scatter with chopped pistachios and pomegranate seeds, dollops of yoghurt, coriander and lemon wedges. Serve with couscous.

Tips

• Trim the beef of excess fat or sinew before cooking