Tangia? Tannur? Tandoori?

[Adam Balic]

Well I am very glad to hear this as I was starting to feel guility about possibly spreading mis-information via google.

Speaking of teganon, I was recently in Lipari where the museum had some outstanding examples of Bronze age Greek pottery. There were even several terracotta teganon, so I was quite possible looking that the original of many of these Arabic dishes.

[helenas]

In Paula Wolfert’s very good “Good Food from Morocco” she describes tracking down a speciality of Marrakesh – “Tangia”. When she eventually found somebody that could make the dish for her, it turned out to be a meat stew cooked in a pot overnight in an oven. The ingredients were listed as: shoulder of lamb, saffron, cumin, garlic, preserved lemon, oil salt pepper.

Paula's book and description of tangia inspired Clarks to offer Tangia recipe in their excellent Casa Moro book: and both books inspired me to make this dish on Sat;

used thick shoulder chops, the spicing was cumin, garlic, preserved lemon, cilantro, onion and butter, the cooking vessel was my favorite cazuela and the dish spent in oven 4 plus hours: enough to produce mind bogglingly silky meat...

[helou]

it is. i was teaching in marrakesh a few months ago and one evening, i went to my friends in the casbah for tangia. their cook had sent it to the local hammam where it cooked in the hot ashes all afternoon. there is a picture of 3 tangias cooking this way, in the same hammam, in my mediterranean street food book with a wonderful recipe that was given to me by boujemaa mars, the head chef at the mammounia hotel, a lovely man who taught me how to make warqa. he was the one who said i should be wary of the food in jame' el fna. i never ate there since his warning, and since seeing a woman being sick immediately after her meal at one of the stalls.

Re:  Tangia?

I am curious that no one has mentioned a fact about the tangia which I took for granted, but now that I have thought about it I realize that, as far as I know, this particular fact comes from a single source, so I don't know if it's something that is widely true about tangia cooking or something that occurs rarely . . . namely:

Tangia are prepared in the morning and then taken to cook at the hammam (the public bathhouse) where they are left all day and collected in the afternoon.

My source for this is this article from the Guardian Unlimited website,  First, preheat your sauna .  . ., which relates taking a cooking class in Marrakesh:

A warm breeze stirs the palm trees as Nezha chops up some preserved lemons and hands them around. We pop them into a tall clay pot with a hunk of lamb, a pinch of cumin, turmeric and ginger, and a blob of concentrated butter. This is simple. So simple in fact that I even start to think I might try this one at home, until Frederic, our host and chef for the week, states: 'Now we go to the hammam!'

Pardon me, but this seems a rather odd point in the proceedings to be heading off for a communal bath and sauna. We are in the middle of a cookery class. But, as I am about to discover, to be authentic, tangia , a speciality dish of Marrakesh, must be cooked in the ashes of the fires that burn underneath the city's hammams, keeping the water piping hot and the steam rooms steamy. Traditionally the man of the house will prepare the tangia in the morning, drop it off at the neighbourhood bathhouse on his way to work and pick it up several hours later on his way home.

. . .

Using the fire of the public bathhouse for cooking brings to mind the communal village ovens that were once common all over the Mediterranean. The practice certainly saves fuel.

So I wonder, is this method of cooking a tangia still common today?

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[Adam Balic]

Nice to see this thread again! I have both a Tuscan bean pot and a Daubiere, so I really should make this now that the weather has turned bitter. I wonder if it would be successful with other types of meat, we have a huge amount of game around at the moment.

These communal oven cooked dishes are very interesting, I know of several other such dishes ("Baeckeoffe" comes to mind), but I imagine that these are the dishes that are in most danger of disappearing in te next few decades. Might be worth somebodies effort to mae a survey of these? Would make an interesting aritcle too.

[Wolfert]

Here is a photo of my tangia pot from Marrakech. Note the small opening at the top. All the meat is cut small and dropped in along with all the other ingredients and the whole covered with paper and tied with string and set in embers to slowly cook.

It's a lovely and easy dish when cooked in a claypot. Since very few people have a tangia at hand, try making it in a tall Chinese sandpot. In our Asian markets you can find one for about $12.00.

[helenas]

I wonder if it would be successful with other types of meat, we have a huge amount of game around at the moment.

good question - i mentioned to my husband when we were enjoying the dish that lamb shoulder mightly be uniquely suited for tangia...

and i like Adam's idea of using bean pot for making tangia - now i have more reason to get one

[Wolfert]

I am perfectly aware the following two suggestions are off the wall but what the h eck!

gazelle and camel are used in place of lamb by soldiers and shepherds in southern Morocco.

I wonder if it would be successful with other types of meat, we have a huge amount of game around at the moment.

good question - i mentioned to my husband when we were enjoying the dish that lamb shoulder mightly be uniquely suited for tangia...

and i like Adam's idea of using bean pot for making tangia - now i have more reason to get one

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[trillium]

it is. i was teaching in marrakesh a few months ago and one evening, i went to my friends in the casbah for tangia. their cook had sent it to the local hammam where it cooked in the hot ashes all afternoon. there is a picture of 3 tangias cooking this way, in the same hammam, in my mediterranean street food book with a wonderful recipe that was given to me by boujemaa mars, the head chef at the mammounia hotel, a lovely man who taught me how to make warqa. he was the one who said i should be wary of the food in jame' el fna. i never ate there since his warning, and since seeing a woman being sick immediately after her meal at one of the stalls.

[

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I really love Mediterranean Street Food, it's one of my favorites, so I'm delighted that you're here and participating. We go on binges where it's all we cook out of for a week or so. How lucky for us to have so many experts around! I haven't made the warqa, but now I'll try it. I'll do as Paula suggests, and use our sa po (sandpot) since that's what we have.

regards,

trillium

[FoodMan]

Here is a photo of my tangia pot from Marrakech. Note the small opening at the top. All the meat is cut small and dropped in along with all the other ingredients and the whole covered with paper and tied with string and set in embers to slowly cook.

It's a lovely and easy dish when cooked in a claypot. Since very few people have a tangia at hand, try making it  in a tall Chinese sandpot. In our Asian markets you can find one for about $12.00.

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That is pretty amazing! I would've thought this is a water jar, like the ones we have in Lebanon!

Was there a link to a recipe anywhere on this thread and I missed it? I am very intrigued.

Elie

[helou]

it is. i was teaching in marrakesh a few months ago and one evening, i went to my friends in the casbah for tangia. their cook had sent it to the local hammam where it cooked in the hot ashes all afternoon. there is a picture of 3 tangias cooking this way, in the same hammam, in my mediterranean street food book with a wonderful recipe that was given to me by boujemaa mars, the head chef at the mammounia hotel, a lovely man who taught me how to make warqa. he was the one who said i should be wary of the food in jame' el fna. i never ate there since his warning, and since seeing a woman being sick immediately after her meal at one of the stalls.

[

←

I really love Mediterranean Street Food, it's one of my favorites, so I'm delighted that you're here and participating. We go on binges where it's all we cook out of for a week or so. How lucky for us to have so many experts around! I haven't made the warqa, but now I'll try it. I'll do as Paula suggests, and use our sa po (sandpot) since that's what we have.

regards,

trillium

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thank you trillium. this is very kind of you. here is the recipe that i have for tangia in med str food. hope you enjoy making it foodman.

Lamb Stewed with Cumin

Tangia

Tangia, a speciality of Marrakesh is the name of the tall earthenware jars as well as the meat stewed in it The same as with tagine which describes both the earthenware dishes with conical lids in which tagines (Moroccan stews) are cooked. The tangia jars are set in the hot ashes of the hammam fire houses and left overnight in the care of the men who tend the fires. They know when to transfer the cooked tangia from the hot ashes to the cooler ones so that it stays warm until it is picked up. Long ago, tangia was exclusively prepared by men who made it on Thursday night, away from their wives, to take the next day on their illicit, amorous picnics. The recipe below was given to me by Boujemaa Mars, head-chef at one of Marrakesh’s most stylish hotel, the Mamounia. You might think, as I did, that stewing meat without any liquid cannot work but lamb releases a lot of liquid during slow cooking. You may wonder if the preserved lemon is essential. A quarter preserved lemon for 2 1/2 pounds meat might not seem much but it does make quite a difference to the sauce. If you cannot find any in the stores, make your own. Cut unwaxed lemons in quarter leaving them attached at the stem end and spread a teaspoon sea salt inside each half. Pack the lemons tightly in a hermetically sealed jar and leave for 3-4 weeks. The preserved lemons used in tangia are at least 6 months old. Serves 4

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large garlic clove, finely choppped

pinch saffron threads

1 teaspoon finely ground white pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

salt

2 1/2 pounds lamb meat from the rump, skinned and defatted then cut into chunks

1/4 preserved lemon, preferably an old one, rind only

1 - Put the oil, chopped garlic, spices and a little salt in a heavy casserole. Stir well then add the meat. Turn it in the seasoned oil and add the preserved lemon rind. Cover and place over a low heat. Simmer for one and a quarter hours, stirring from time to time, or until the meat is very tender and the sauce thickened. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. If the sauce is still runny , increase the heat to high and boil for a few minutes for the excess liquid to evaporate. Serve very hot with good bread.

[chefzadi]

Tangia and the cooking method and vessel are found in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia under differentt names.

It's not just a specialty of one town.

Edited October 5, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[FlyingChopstik]

Id like to cook tangia. Do you think that cooking it in a chamba pot produce the same results? Its more of a chubby round pot then the tall urn shaped bean pots.