Gentle Lamb and Apricot Tagine
Allergen lists cover the priority allergens in the recipe as written. Always check your own ingredient labels, and introduce each new allergen on its own first.
Ingredients
- 350 g (12 oz) boneless lamb shoulder, cut into large pieces about 8-9 cm long and 3 cm thick (not small cubes — you need pieces big enough to serve as finger strips)
- 6 unsulphured (sulphite-free) dried apricots (~60 g), finely chopped
- 1 small onion (~80 g), finely diced
- 1 medium courgette/zucchini (~150 g), cut into thick finger-length batons
- 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) no-salt-added stock or water (check the label for hidden salt and celery)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
Method
- 1. Warm the olive oil in a heavy casserole over medium heat. Add the onion and soften for 5 minutes without browning.
- 2. Stir in the cumin, cinnamon and coriander and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant.
- 3. Add the lamb pieces and turn to coat, then pour in the no-salt-added stock and add the chopped apricots.
- 4. Cover and simmer very gently for 1 hour 30 minutes, topping up with a splash of water if it looks dry.
- 5. Add the courgette batons and cook a further 20-30 minutes, until the lamb pulls apart under a fork and the courgette is completely soft all the way through.
- 6. Lift out the lamb. For a 6-8 month old, keep one or two whole braised pieces intact to serve as finger strips. Pull the rest apart across the grain (at right angles to the fibres) into short, soft shreds — never long threads.
- 7. Mash any remaining apricot pieces into the sauce so no firm chewy lumps are left whole. Stir the lamb back through, cool to lukewarm, and check every piece squashes between thumb and forefinger.
- 8. Use unsulphured (sulphite-free) apricots: ordinary dried apricots are preserved with sulphur dioxide, a declarable allergen — if you use those instead, add Sulphites to your family allergen record. Refrigerate within 2 hours, use within 2 days, or freeze for up to 1 month.
How to serve by age
6–8 months
Serve one whole braised lamb piece the length of an adult index finger (about 8 cm) and two fingers thick, plus a courgette baton the same size — big enough to be grabbed in the whole fist for the palmar (whole-hand) grasp, with a stub protruding above the thumb for baby to gnaw. Both must squash easily between your thumb and forefinger. Smear the apricot sauce thinly onto the meat rather than serving a separate sticky pool.
9–12 months
Shred the lamb into 1 cm (pea-sized) soft pieces and dice the courgette to 1 cm cubes so baby can isolate each morsel with the pincer grasp (thumb + forefinger). Chop the cooked apricots to no larger than 5 mm — dried fruit is sticky and must never be served in a whole or half piece.
Paediatric note
Lamb delivers heme iron plus roughly 4 mg of zinc per 100 g, and zinc is the nutrient most often short in babies who eat little or no meat after 6 months. Dried apricots are a useful non-heme iron top-up, but their stickiness and skin make them a choking risk whole, so always chop them small and cook them until soft.
Source guidance: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/weaning-and-feeding/
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