benazir's blog

Camel With Or Without Veg Of Choice In A Delicious Sauce

When I first heard of camel meat I would hear of it from reading it from books. It is the perfered meat of Beduins who are Nomadic. They lived all over North Africa by the Sahara Desert and in The Middle East. Also according to my DNA from 23AndMe where I took my DNA test is in these areas. Oops I forgot and sorry, I hope everyone had a nice Ramadan and Eid Al Fitr. Belated Eid Mubarak to all and I pray the crazy mess in Palestine will end and everyone gets along Ameen.

Before you start this dish I want to tell you if you are going to use tomato purèe this is the only optional item and I will tell you more as we progress through this recipe. This is my own recipe. I made this one up because there were some that I did not want to use for what I had in mind. However Mr. Riaz told me the Makrani in Pakistan eats camel a lot too. However they live in the southern parts of Baluchestan and Sind provences in Pakistan. They also have dark skin and have African features and hair too.

Also you will need to make preserved lemon in advance if you do not have it already on hand 3 days ahead of time. Preserved Lemons is what you will need for this recipe and you can use either Baharat Or Bokharat Seasoning or My Ras El Hanout. Either one of these will do just fine or you can do this which is just for this dish only. Do not forget sumac is a must no matter what. Those spice mixes are for single use only so it is not a biggy here.

You will need 1 kg or 1 lb of camel meat. Wash this throughly. Add 1 oz of either olive oil, grapeseed oil or sunflower oil in the instant pot and turn on to sautè for 6 minutes. To this add 1 tbs of either hazelnut, almond, pumpkin, black walnut, flaxseed, hemp or milk thistle oil. Now only if you want to use tomato purèe then you can rough chop 1 tomato only and add it to mini processor then blend it to make a purèe to use in a bit. If you do not want to use this ingredient then skip this step.

Chop 1 small piece of ginger, 1 small piece of fresh turmeric if using, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 onion or shallot. These the the manditory just like the sumac which you will need 1 pinch. Also 1 bay leaf is a mandatory too.

Only if you are not using any one of these spice mixes on which I provided the link for then you can put in mortar and pestle 1 broken piece of cinnamon stick, 4 allspice berries, 1 pinch each of cumin, coriander seeds, peppercorns, black cumin, shai zeera also known as caraway seeds, fenugreek seeds, kaloonji also known as black seed, 2 cloves, 2 kabab chini also known as false cubeb berries. Grind in to a coarse powder and add along with the 1 pinch of red chili powder or 1 dried red chili of any type. The chili provides heat and is mandatory too. Make sure the chili is crushed before adding it and stir it in with the onion or shallot with the ginger.

If you are using fresh turmeric, be sure you are grinding it before adding to the spicy onion mixture. Also add 2 pieces of preserved lemon, 1 pinch of malissa also known as lemon balm or you can use a small broken piece of dried lime instead and grind this along with the fresh turmeric piece if using.

You can use 1 pinch of turmeric powder if you did not want to use the root. Add 1 bullion cube ground in mortar and pestle to break it up or 1 pinch of bullion powder. You can use the equal amount of plain sea salt, kosher salt, Himalayan pink salt, seasoned salt or vegtea seasoning, 3 dashes of Maggi or Knorr aroma, 3 dashes of either balsamic or wine vinegar. Wash the camel meat and slice it in to smaller pieces in case if they are in large chunks. add this to the instant pot and cook it with the spicy mixture.

Now here you can add 10 almonds, pistacios or pine nuts roasted and crushed. Dry roast them in a wok on high heat before crushing. Now if you are adding vegetables there is no need to add the nuts and it is any veg of choice for this dish which is optional too. I used 1/4 cup of frozen peas. I prefer frozen vegetables for this dish. But if you insist on using fresh then I suggest 1 cup of baby carrots, chopped zucchini, Italian yellow squash, eggplant, cauliflower, broccoli or frozen greens any type, asperagas, artichoke, or green beans.

From here. you can either add the tomato purèe or the yogurt mixture of 1/4 cup of beaten yogurt with 1 pinch of cornstarch and 1/2 cup of water added and mix again. Just be sure you beat the yogurt before you add the cornstarch and the water. This will keep the yogurt from curdling. Add 1 drop of pomegrante molasses and or pommegrante syrup.

Turn the instant pot off if it did not shut off already. Even if it says off just press cancel so you can turn on the slow cook function to high and cook for 4 hours. Sorry this is not a pressure cooker type dish. At least not this time it isn’t. However when done add 2 tbs of tahini also known as sesame paste. The sauce should be thick and yummy.

This delicious camel in it sauce with all of its glory is so yummy. I am so very impressed on my very first time trying this meat and it is so delicious and lean. Enjoy this on either rice, couscous or khubs, which by the way means bread in Arabic. I have a funny tale to tell you regarding camel before I even tried it and Mr. Riaz loves it too. However he told me don’t take swear it is a sin. Since you took swear for nothing Benazir cut a camel. I hope this made you laugh. P.S. Oops, I forgot and sorry for the delay. Sometimes camel meat may be hard to come by but you can add 1 lb of beef, veal, chicken, lamb or goat in its place.

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