The danger of stepping away

Today's dish was a beef tangine with sweet potatoes. At the end, you are supposed to brown the potatoes and since it wasn't happening fast enough by baking, I turned on the broiler. And then stepped away for a moment. Too long. I'm telling myself that the black spots add character and flavor. Kind of like when you grill a hot link.

And for those of you wondering what it all is, here goes. The beef was browned with turmeric. Then I added diced onion, seeded diced serranos, cumin, paprika, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Then I added water, covered it and let it all simmer away in the oven for about an hour and a half. Next I added chopped cilantro and parsley and placed the blanched yam slices on top. (Yeah, I know I said in the previous paragraph that they were sweet potatoes but that's because that was the name of the recipe. I always use yams when sweet potatoes are called for because yams are less stringy.) Dot with butter. Then it was covered and went back into the oven for another ten minutes. Finally I uncovered it all so that the yams could brown. Ummmm. Yeah. So it went a little beyond brown. But it definitely was tasty. The yams help to cut some of the spiciness of the meat.

And I would like to thank my new kitchen tool -- a mandoline -- for making this all possible. There is no way possible that I would have been able to slice the potatoes by hand like this. I am also now wondering how I have managed to survive for so long without a mandoline.

And just a reminder. You still have time to enter for one of the lovely items, I'm giving away.