Name: Marqa Hlouwa
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 2 h 10 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Tunisian
Ingredients: 900 g lamb shoulder, cut into 4 cm pieces; 2 onions, sliced; 4 tbsp olive oil; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1 tbsp harissa; 2 cinnamon sticks; 1 tsp ground coriander; ½ tsp ground ginger; 1 ¾ tsp fine sea salt; 900 ml water; 2 quinces, peeled, cored and cut into wedges; 150 g prunes, pitted; 2 tbsp honey; 50 g blanched almonds, toasted; 1 tbsp rose water

Marqa Hlouwa

Lamb stewed with quince, prunes and cinnamon into something sweet against the harissa. Made for Eid, and the sweetness is meant to be startling.

2 hr 10 min to 2 hr 25 min total 2 hr 10 min to 2 hr 25 min start to finish Serves 6 servings Easy

Marqa Hlouwa: Step by Step

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Brown the lamb in the oil over high heat in two batches, 8 minutes total. Lift out.
Soften the onions in the same pan 10 minutes.
Stir in the tomato purée and harissa and fry 2 minutes until the oil runs red.
Return the lamb with the cinnamon sticks, ground coriander, ginger, salt and water. Simmer covered 60 minutes.
Test a piece of quince — if it is rock hard, poach it separately in water for 15 minutes first.
Add the quince, prunes and honey and simmer uncovered 25 minutes, until the lamb is tender and the sauce has reduced and glossed.
Stir in the rose water off the heat and scatter with the toasted almonds. Serve with couscous or bread.

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What Can Go Wrong

Fruit in for the last 25 minutes only.
Test the quince first — hardness varies enormously.
The sweetness is the point. Do not cut the honey.

Good to Know About Marqa Hlouwa

The fruit goes in for the last twenty-five minutes only. Quince and prunes added at the start dissolve entirely and leave a stew that is uniformly sweet with nothing to bite on — the point is whole pieces of fruit sitting in a savoury, chilli-warm sauce. Quince also needs poaching separately if it is very hard, because it can take longer than the lamb; test a piece before deciding, since ripeness varies enormously.

To Go With It

Plain couscous · Khobz tabouna · Mint tea

Keeping Marqa Hlouwa

Refrigerated for 4 days and better the next day. It freezes for 3 months.

The Numbers per Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Dairy-Free Gluten-Free