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No-sear Lamb or Beef and Chickpea Stew
The mess, time and trouble required to brown meat for a stew left us longing for a better way. Did we really need that step to get big flavor? Then we discovered a world of alternatives from cultures where cooks skip the browning and instead build layers of flavor with spices and condiments. For our no-sear, no-stock stew, based on the Yemeni dish known as maraq, we started with a dry seasoning mix—paprika, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, salt and pepper. It did double duty, with half the mixture rubbed onto the meat and the rest briefly cooked in the pot with onion, butter and tomato paste. Cooking the seasonings with the fat and tomato paste bloomed their flavors and lightly browned the tomato paste. We wanted the savory sweetness of roasted whole garlic cloves (mincing releases aggressive sulfurous compounds) but not the trouble of roasting a head separately. So, we sliced off the top of the head, then added it whole to the stew to cook alongside the meat. We liked the flavor and texture of lamb shoulder. Boneless beef chuck worked, too, but needs an extra 1 cup of water and must cook for 1½ hours before the carrots are added.
4
Servings
Tip
Don’t use old spices. The backbone of the dish is the bold, vibrant spice mixture. Make sure yours are no more than a year old. Flat-leaf parsley can be substituted for the cilantro.
2 hrs and 15 mins
40 mins active
Ingredients
-
1
tablespoon sweet paprika
-
2
teaspoons ground cumin
Directions
-
01In a bowl, stir together the paprika, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, 1½ teaspoons of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper. Reserve half of the spice mixture, then toss the meat with the remaining spice mixture until well coated. Set aside. Cut off and discard the top third of the garlic head, leaving the cloves intact.
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August 30, 2022
Great dish! I substitute chicken breast.
I go with the recipe as is but with chicken breast and it comes out delicious every time!
June 19, 2022
Delicious
I have made this recipe several times with both lamb and beef. It always comes out delicious. It is the best stew I have ever had. My family loves it too, so I make it very often. I do not put 3 tablespoons of lemon at the end. It would make it too sour. I put 1 and taste then add a little more.
February 11, 2024
Amazing
By far, one of my favorite stews ever! The time is worth it!
February 9, 2024
Tasty and easy
This is a great go-to recipe. I always double the recipe and freeze in batches. Its more soupy than stewy, so if you want to thicken it, do so.
October 1, 2023
WOW!
Hearty & earthy, love it best with lamb and I had to share the recipe with my lamb-loving mother as well.
Enjoyed this recipe as a family this evening! I used a package of pre-cut beef stew meat from Costco, as I was looking for minimal prep time today. It was excellent and definitely a repeat dish for our household. Easy to pull together and the heat did most of the work. Served it atop couscous with the recommended yogurt and cilantro. It was a success with everyone at the table, especially our two youngest (ages 10 and 13). They can't wait to have the leftovers in the coming days.
Hi Dana -
The timing, texture and flavor of the dish will all change if you replace the meat with chicken or tofu. Because chicken will take about 1/4 of the time (tofu really doesn't even need to be cooked), we don't think the flavor development will get there. Because of this, we would likely have to do a complete re-engineering of the recipe to make up for that diminished flavor (likely replacing the water with broth, reducing the liquid, etc.) so, unfortunately, it's not a 1:1 replacement.
Best,
The Milk Street Team
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We love Middle Eastern spices and seasonings at our house and lamb is a favorite protein so using lamb in this dish, we made this twice. Once as written and once using lamb shoulder instead of leg. Also, we almost always have home cooked chickpeas at hand so used those both times. (Easy to cook in advance and freeze in roughly 1 can portions - like 1 1/2 C - and so much better we think than from a can.) While we thought the flavors in this are delicious, we preferred the shoulder meat to the leg and in both preparations we have to say we did miss that the meat wasn't browned first.