Tangia is Marrakech's bachelor dish: lamb or beef sealed in a tall clay urn with preserved lemon, saffron, garlic, cumin and olive oil, then buried in the hammam's wood-fired furnace coals for seven hours.

Tangia emerged in the Marrakech medina as the working man's lunch. Craftsmen and merchants would assemble the urn at home, drop it at the neighbourhood hammam furnace on the way to work, paying the fire-tender (mul farnatchi) about a dirham to bury it in the coals. After a morning's labour they would collect the finished urn for lunch. The dish is uniquely Marrakchi; you find it almost nowhere else in Morocco.

Where to eat Tangia in Marrakech

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Make it at home

Serves Serves 44 hrIntermediate

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg lamb shoulder, cut into 4 cm chunks (bone-in for flavour)
  • 1 preserved lemon, rind only, finely chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • Pinch of saffron threads, crumbled
  • 1 tsp smen (Moroccan aged butter) or unsalted butter
  • 100 ml olive oil
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 200 ml water

Method

  1. Place the lamb in a heavy lidded ovenproof clay pot or Dutch oven that can take long, low heat.
  2. Add the preserved lemon, garlic, cumin, ginger, saffron, smen, olive oil, salt, pepper and water. Stir to coat.
  3. Seal the pot tightly. If using clay, line the lid with foil for a hard seal; if using a Dutch oven, the lid alone is enough.
  4. Cook at 130C/265F for 4 hours undisturbed. The lamb should pull apart at the touch.
  5. Open at the table; serve straight from the urn with khobz bread for dipping. Season with extra cumin and salt at the table.

Editor tip. The slow temperature is the whole game. Anything above 150C dries the lamb; below 120C the bones don't yield. Use a probe thermometer.