Lamb

This is the best-known fruit tagine outside Morocco. Restaurants in Paris accompany it with couscous seffa made with fine-ground couscous (see page 28) with plenty of butter, one bowl of boiled chickpeas, and another of stewed raisins. The best prunes to use are the moist Californian ones, which are already pitted.

In an Arab culture born in the desert, dates have something of a sacred character. Considered the “bread of the desert,” they symbolize hospitality and are much loved and prestigious. You would find this dish at wedding parties. Some people find it too sweet, so you might prefer it, as I do, without the optional honey. The dates give it a slightly sticky texture. Use the semi-dried moist varieties from California or the Deglet Nour dates from Tunisia.

This is a recipe that is similar to the chicken tagine on page 93, but the result is quite different. The sweetness of the pears goes surprisingly well with the lamb. Choose firm pears; if the fruit is too soft, they tend to collapse during the cooking. Comice and Bosc are good varieties. Use a boned shoulder of lamb or neck fillets, and trim only some—not all—of the fat.

The best lamb to use for this tagine is either boned shoulder or neck fillet. Trim away some of the excess fat before cooking. Some supermarkets sell fresh shelled peas, which are young and sweet, but frozen petits pois will also do very well. If the olives are very salty, soak them in water for up to an hour.

A favorite joint for a family roast in Morocco is a shoulder of lamb, and honeyed onions are a specially delicious accompaniment. The lamb is cooked very slowly for a long time, until it is so tender that the meat can be pulled away from the bone with the fingers. In the past, the lamb was cooked on the spit in the family courtyard or taken to the public oven. A shoulder roast of young spring lamb is always fatty, but most of the fat melts away during the long cooking, keeping the meat moist and succulent. If an older lamb is too fatty, carefully remove some of the fat with a sharp knife before cooking. Use the smaller amount of honey to begin with, and add more, to taste.

In Morocco, men are masters of the fire, in charge of the brochettes, the small kebabs threaded on little wood or metal skewers, which are traditional street food. The ground meat kebabs are deliciously aromatic—full of fresh herbs and spices. The meat is usually pressed around skewers and cooked over dying embers, but it is easier simply to pat the meat into sausage or burger shapes and cook them under the broiler or on a griddle. There should be a good amount of fat (it melts away under the fierce heat), enough to keep the meat moist and soft. Otherwise, work 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil into the paste. Bite-size keftas can be served as appetizers at a party, but en famille burger-size ones, accompanied by a salad, represent a main dish.

This is sumptuous and extremely easy. The meat is cooked very slowly for a long time until it is meltingly tender and you can pull the meat off the bones with your fingers. The stuffing—it is the traditional stuffing for a whole lamb—is sweet with dates and raisins and crunchy with almonds. (In Morocco, they add sugar or honey but that makes it too sweet for me.) The couscous needs plenty of butter as there is no sauce, but you can substitute oil if you prefer. Try to get the fine-ground variety of couscous called seffa (see page 28), otherwise use the ordinary medium-ground one. For the dates, use the Tunisian Deglet Nour or Californian varieties that you can find in supermarkets. A shoulder of spring lamb is always fatty but most of the fat melts away during the long cooking. If it appears too fatty, as might be the case with an older lamb, carefully remove some of the fat before cooking.

Harira is the generic term for a soup full of pulses—chickpeas, lentils, or beans—with little meat, few vegetables, and plenty of herbs and spices. Every day during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset, the smell of this soup permeates the streets as every household prepares its own version to be eaten when the sound of the cannon signals the breaking of the fast. While ingredients and spices vary, a particular feature is the way it is given what is described in Morocco as a “velvety” touch by stirring in a sourdough batter or simply flour mixed with water. In the cities in Morocco, it serves as a one-dish evening meal, and in rural areas it is also eaten as breakfast before peasants go out to work in the fields. During Ramadan, it is served with lemon quarters and accompanied by dates and honeyed pastries. The soup can be made a long time in advance, but if you are adding the tiny bird’s-tongue pasta—douida in Morocco (you find it in Middle Eastern stores), orzo in Italian stores (or you can use broken vermicelli)—these should be added only about 10 to 15 minutes before you are ready to serve, otherwise they will get bloated and mushy. I have given measurements for a large quantity because it is a rich, substantial soup that you might like to serve as a one-dish meal at a party. The best cuts of meat to use are shoulder or neck fillet.

In Morocco, these briwat bil kefta are made with warka (see page 29) and deep-fried, but it is not only much easier to use fillo and to bake them, but the result is very good. See the note on fillo on page 9. I used sheets measuring about 6 inches × 12 inches. It is very good finger food to serve at a party.

The foods from North Africa and the Middle East truly have some of the deepest flavors I’ve ever tasted. Don’t be daunted by the length of the recipe: This dish is not at all difficult to throw down, and the results are well worth the long shopping list. The Harissa sauce can be made a day ahead and the caponata is also good by itself or as a side dish.

For me, commercially produced curry power tastes just that: commercial. You would never find prepared curry powder in an Indian restaurant, and because the spices are combined fresh, the flavors are robust and explosive. If you like a light curry flavor, use half the spice mix. If you like a spicy curry—use it all. I won’t be mad at ya. Serve the lamb curry with Perfect Steamed Jasmine Rice (page 240) or basmati rice. This is Bombay the right way.

Leg of lamb is a traditional Easter and Passover dish, but it makes a wonderful company meal any time.

Have the butcher trim (french) the rib bones. In the convection oven, the cooking time is cut by about half, and the lamb turns out beautifully browned and very juicy. When still pink, it is the juiciest. It is best to marinate the lamb for at least an hour or even overnight.

Boneless leg of lamb is versatile and easy to prepare. One of my favorite and easiest rubs for lamb combines the flavors of garlic and rosemary.

So simple, yet so flavorful. These lamb chops roast to medium-rare in 8 to 10 minutes in the convection oven. Lamb chops are difficult to probe with a thermometer because they are so small. You can cut one to determine doneness.

Slowly braised meats are a specialty of cooks in the high country of Abruzzo. With a fire always burning in the hearth or on a stove, it makes sense to keep a pot stewing. And from the ubiquitous flocks of sheep there’s always some mutton or lamb that will benefit from long cooking. Here’s a typically tasty example: a leg of lamb, bone removed, laid open in a flat slab (what we call “butterflied”), then slathered with a savory bread filling, rolled and tied up, and cooked for hours in a savory tomato sauce. This is a great dish for a festive occasion, because a big leg will easily serve eight or more. To savor it Italian-style, I encourage you to present this in two courses, using the sauce to dress maccheroni alla chitarra or other pasta for a primo (first course), and serving the sliced lamb leg as the main course. Mashed potatoes and braised broccoli or chicory would be excellent accompaniments to the meat. Keep the recipe procedure in mind when purchasing boneless leg of lamb. You want a leg that’s been butterflied but preferably left untied. However, do ask the butcher for a length of the netting, or meat stocking, that slips over a rolled leg to hold it in shape; this will come in handy once the meat is stuffed and ready to cook. If the butcher is accommodating, specify that you want the leg butterflied to lie flat with an even thickness, so you can coat the meat generously with the bread seasoning and roll it up neatly. Should you end up with meat that is too thick in places, you can flatten it yourself with a meat mallet, or by butterflying, that is, sliding a knife into the thick muscle and opening it up.

This is a lovely, careful way to prepare thick lamb chops—quite different from the usual fast grilling approach—and it makes them extraordinarily flavorful and tender. The chops brown gradually in a heavy skillet over relatively low heat, steadily building the flavors of caramelization, and then cook covered with a small amount of liquid and seasoning elements. This short period of moist cooking doesn’t draw the meat juices into the liquid (as it would in long stewing or braising) but instead brings the seasoning flavors more intensely into the meat itself. Here, lemon, olives, and oregano give the chops the tangy taste of Abruzzo. For a great winter meal, accompany them with something cozy, like polenta, mashed potatoes, or smothered cabbage or cauliflower. In summer, a tossed green salad is all you need. Either rib chops or loin chops are suited for this recipe, though my choice is the loin chop, which offers portions of both the loin and the tenderloin muscles (like a T-bone steak). You could use lamb shoulder chops, too, but they’d need nearly twice as much time to cook covered. They wouldn’t be as amazingly tender as loin or rib chops, but they would be delicious (and cost a lot less). With any kind of chop, a heavy cast-iron pan is perfect here, because of its steady heat-retaining qualities, but it must be well seasoned, so the meaty caramelization is not lost on the pan bottom.

This is one of those delicious dishes that are complex in taste but easy in preparation. In Le Marche it is made with lamb and Ascolane olives, because that is what the land provides, but it could be made with other green olives; black olives, such as taggiasche or Gaeta, would be fine, too. As in the recipe for Chicken with Olives and Pine Nuts (page 176), the simple pan-cooking method used here is typical of Le Marche. Try preparing other meats, such as beef or pork, the same way—keeping in mind that the cooking time will vary—and the results will be excellent. And though lamb shoulder is delicious and economical, more expensive lamb would be extraordinary prepared in the same style. This dish is good any time of year, too. In the winter, serve it with polenta and braised bitter greens such as broccoli di rape; in summer, a tossed green salad would go nicely.

While flipping through an Australian food magazine, my eyes were drawn to the appetizing green sauce in a photo of Indian-style meatballs. I am one of those people who do not rate cilantro as my favorite herb, but when I developed this dish to replicate the recipe at home, the sauce proved as delicious as it was attractive. Cook some basmati rice to serve with the meatballs.